FAQ

What is the UCC?

The acronym UCC stands for Unified Cluster Catalogue. It is the largest catalogue of open clusters in existence. It consists of comprehensive and homogeneous data for an ever expanding number of entries, taken from the latest published articles combined with data from the Gaia survey.

Catalogued OCs in the literature

What objects are included in the UCC?

The UCC lists any object that was catalogued as an open cluster in the literature. This object might be classified differently in other articles (e.g.: moving group, association, etc.) but it will remain listed in the UCC because at least one article at some point indicated that it was an open cluster.

The UCC is regularly updated to include new research. If your article is not listed in the database, you can contact me with the details and I will add it as soon as possible.

How are member stars selected?

Membership is obtained through the fastMP method described in Sect. 3 of Perren et al. (2023). The fastMP membership estimation method has been incorporated into the ASteCA package (see details here).

What is the C3 parameter?

The C3 parameter is the combined class, described in Sect. 4.3 of Perren et al. (2023) where the UCC was initially introduced.

Classification of OCs in the literature

How can I cite the UCC?

If you found the UCC useful for your research, please reference its original article Perren et al. (2023):

@ARTICLE{2023MNRAS.526.4107P,
       author = {{Perren}, Gabriel I. and {Pera}, Mar{\'\i}a S. and {Navone}, Hugo D. and {V{\'a}zquez}, Rub{\'e}n A.},
        title = "{The Unified Cluster Catalogue: towards a comprehensive and homogeneous data base of stellar clusters}",
      journal = {\mnras},
     keywords = {methods: data analysis, catalogues, open clusters and associations: general, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies},
         year = 2023,
        month = dec,
       volume = {526},
       number = {3},
        pages = {4107-4119},
          doi = {10.1093/mnras/stad2826},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023MNRAS.526.4107P}
}