juliensimon/symbiotic-stars-catalog

Symbiotic Stars Catalog (Belczynski 2000)

Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face.

Dataset description

The Belczynski-Mikolajewska-Munari-Ivison-Friedjung catalog of symbiotic stars (VizieR J/A+AS/146/407, A&AS 146, 407, 2000) — the reference compilation of 218 confirmed and suspected symbiotic stars.

Symbiotic stars are interacting binary systems where a cool giant (typically an M-type Mira or red giant) loses mass to a hot compact accretor (almost always a white dwarf, occasionally a neutron star). The strong color contrast between the cool donor and the hot accretion/nebular component produces a distinctive composite spectrum with both molecular absorption bands and high-excitation emission lines. Symbiotics are central to several open questions in stellar astrophysics: as candidate Type Ia supernova progenitors (white dwarf mass growth via stable hydrogen burning), as testbeds for binary mass transfer in wide orbits, and as the dominant population of recurrent novae.

Each row records the BMM2000 identifier, primary designation, J2000 sky position, Galactic coordinates, V and K magnitudes in quiescence, infrared spectral type of the donor (S, D, or D'), and detection flags for IUE ultraviolet spectroscopy and X-ray observations along with the maximum observed outburst amplitude.

Use this dataset alongside juliensimon/cataclysmic-variable-catalog (closely-related short-period white dwarf binaries), juliensimon/galactic-novae-schaefer (the recurrent-nova overlap class), juliensimon/aavso-vsx-variable-stars (ongoing photometry of symbiotic outbursts), juliensimon/gaia-dr3-white-dwarfs (the accretor population), and juliensimon/xray-binary-catalog (the X-ray-bright symbiotic subset).

This dataset is suitable for tabular classification tasks.

Schema

Column	Type	Description	Sample	Null %
bmm2000_id	str	Sequential identifier in the Belczynski-Mikolajewska-Munari-Friedjung 2000 compilation (e.g. '001', '002')	001	0.0%
bmm2000_note	str	Annotation flag on the BMM2000 identifier (rare)	*	45.0%
name	str	Primary star designation (e.g. 'SMC1', 'AG Peg', 'Z And'); resolves to SIMBAD	SMC1	0.0%
ra	float64	Right ascension (degrees, J2000, 0-360)	7.295416666666665	0.0%
dec	float64	Declination (degrees, J2000, -90 to +90)	-74.96080555555554	0.0%
galactic_longitude	float64	Galactic longitude (degrees, 0-360)	121.54	7.8%
galactic_latitude	float64	Galactic latitude (degrees, -90 to +90)	-22.17	7.8%
v_magnitude	float64	Apparent V-band magnitude in quiescence (mag); brighter sources have smaller values	16.2	5.5%
k_magnitude	float64	Apparent K-band (2.2 um) magnitude in quiescence (mag); samples the cool-giant donor	2.6	16.5%
infrared_type	str	Infrared spectral type classification of the cool donor: 'S' = S-type (stellar, no dust), 'D' = D-type (dusty, Mira variable), 'D'' = intermediate; appended ':' marks uncertain class	S:	17.4%
iue_observed	str	IUE ultraviolet spectrum availability flag: '+' = observed by IUE, blank = not observed	+	60.1%
x_ray_detection	str	X-ray detection flag: '+' = detected, '-' = upper limit, blank = unobserved; symbiotic X-ray emission comes from accretion onto the white dwarf	-	18.8%
outburst_amplitude_mag	float64	Maximum observed outburst amplitude (magnitudes); symbiotic novae outbursts can exceed 5 magnitudes	114.0	1.4%

Quick stats

• 218 confirmed + suspected symbiotic stars in the canonical Belczynski 2000 compilation
• 87 observed with IUE in the ultraviolet; 28 detected in X-rays
• Infrared donor classes: S (132), D (31), D' (7), S,D (6), D? (2)
• Quiescent V magnitudes span 5.1 to 19.0 mag

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/symbiotic-stars-catalog", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

from datasets import load_dataset
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

df = load_dataset("juliensimon/symbiotic-stars-catalog", split="train").to_pandas()

# Galactic distribution — symbiotics trace bulge and disk populations
mask = df["galactic_longitude"].notna() & df["galactic_latitude"].notna()
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 5), subplot_kw={"projection": "mollweide"})
glon = np.radians(np.where(df.loc[mask, "galactic_longitude"] > 180,
                            df.loc[mask, "galactic_longitude"] - 360,
                            df.loc[mask, "galactic_longitude"]))
glat = np.radians(df.loc[mask, "galactic_latitude"])
ax.scatter(-glon, glat, s=12, alpha=0.7)
ax.grid(True)
ax.set_title("Galactic distribution of symbiotic stars (Belczynski+ 2000)")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

# Infrared-type breakdown — S vs D-type donors
print(df["infrared_type"].value_counts().head(10))

Data source

https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+AS/146/407

Related datasets

• juliensimon/cataclysmic-variable-catalog

• juliensimon/galactic-novae-schaefer

• juliensimon/aavso-vsx-variable-stars

• juliensimon/gaia-dr3-white-dwarfs

• juliensimon/xray-binary-catalog

• juliensimon/hot-subdwarf-stars

If you find this dataset useful, please consider giving it a like on Hugging Face. It helps others discover it.

About the author

Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.

Citation

@dataset{symbiotic_stars_catalog,
  title = {Symbiotic Stars Catalog (Belczynski 2000)},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/symbiotic-stars-catalog},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

VizieR Scientific-Use Terms