(historical star catalog of the whole sky to magnitude 11)
The Astrographic Catalog was to be the product of an
effort begun in 1887 to photograph the entire sky down to magnitude +11.5.
As conceived, it would provide a reference of brighter stars for a
simultaneous more-ambitious project, the Cart du Ciel, which would
cover the sky to magnitude +14. The Astrographic Catalog effort was
carried on for decades, the sky divided into more than twenty zones,
assigned to individual observatories around the world. Eventually,
as efforts dwindled over time, the USNO took up the project
of completing it, which evolved into more modern efforts, such as
the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog.
(Navies and seafarers in general have had a long-standing interest
in astronomy given its use in navigation.)
The plates produced by the earlier observatory efforts have
been of use for comparison with recent efforts such as Hipparcos,
in the study of proper motion