juliensimon/black-hole-catalog

---
license: cc-by-4.0
pretty_name: "Black Hole Catalog"
language:
- en
description: >-
Catalog of known black hole systems — confirmed black holes, candidates, and
X-ray binaries from the SIMBAD astronomical database. Updated weekly.
size_categories:
- n<1K
task_categories:
- tabular-classification
tags:
- open-data
- astronomy
- black-hole
- x-ray-binary
- simbad
- high-energy
configs:
- config_name: default
data_files:
- split: train
path: data/black_holes.parquet
---

# Black Hole Catalog


Catalog of **3765** known black hole systems from [SIMBAD](https://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/):
**3** confirmed black holes, **14** candidates, and
**3748** X-ray binary systems hosting black hole companions.

## Schema

| Column | Type | Description |
|--------|------|-------------|
| `name` | string | Primary SIMBAD identifier |
| `ra_deg` | float | Right ascension (degrees) |
| `dec_deg` | float | Declination (degrees) |
| `object_type` | string | SIMBAD type code (BH, BH?, XB*, HXB, LXB) |
| `bh_category` | string | Readable category |
| `spectral_type` | string | Spectral classification |
| `v_mag` | float | Visual magnitude |
| `b_mag` | float | Blue magnitude |
| `k_mag` | float | K-band (infrared) magnitude |
| `distance_pc` | float | Distance in parsecs |
| `angular_size_arcmin` | float | Angular size (arcmin) |

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

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

# Confirmed black holes only
confirmed = df[df["object_type"] == "BH"]

# By category
df["bh_category"].value_counts()
```

## Update frequency

Updated **weekly on Monday at 18:30 UTC** via GitHub Actions.

## Data source

[SIMBAD Astronomical Database](https://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/) (CDS, Strasbourg).

## Related datasets

- [gravitational-wave-events](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/gravitational-wave-events) — Black hole and neutron star mergers from LIGO/Virgo
- [quasar-catalog](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/quasar-catalog) — 50K quasars and AGN (supermassive black holes)
- [pulsar-catalog](https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/pulsar-catalog) — 4,300+ pulsars (neutron stars)

## Pipeline

Source code: [juliensimon/space-datasets](https://github.com/juliensimon/space-datasets)

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{black_hole_catalog,
author = {Simon, Julien},
title = {Black Hole Catalog},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Hugging Face},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/black-hole-catalog},
note = {Based on SIMBAD astronomical database (CDS Strasbourg)}
}
```