<p>No, this doesn't seem to exist.</p>
<p>Hard to prove a negative, but if such a thing existed then you'd expect it to be referenced by Wikipedia (etc). It would be a very useful source for its &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_holes" rel="noreferrer">List of Black Holes</a>&quot;. No such catalogue is mentioned which tends to suggest it doesn't exist.</p>
<p>Secondly, most catalogues list <em>sources</em>, not <em>objects</em>.  So there are catalogues of &quot;X-ray sources&quot;. Some of these sources are interpreted as being stellar-mass black-holes.</p>
<p>There are many types of observation that can imply a black hole: AGC, X-ray binary, Lensing events, Gravitational wave and others.  As catalogues list observations and sources, not objects, you are less likely to find a &quot;catalogue&quot; of black holes.</p>
<p>Many objects are only &quot;probably&quot; black holes, or &quot;possible black holes&quot;, with different levels of uncertainty. This also tends to prevent a <em>comprehensive</em> catalogue. For some sources the evidence that the object is a black hole is stronger, for others it is more equivocal.</p>
<p>However see <a href="http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/relativity/bhctable.html" rel="noreferrer">Robert Johnston's list of black hole candidates</a> although it is rather outdated.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/hmxbcat.html" rel="noreferrer">Catalog of High-Mass X-Ray Binaries in the Galaxy</a> lists sources of X-rays, identifying those that are black hole candidates. It doesn't claim to be a comprehensive list of black holes, and excludes those found by (for example) lensing.</p>
<p>Finally, it is thought that every (or nearly every) substantial galaxy has a supermassive black-hole.  To create a truly comprehensive catalogue, you would need to include several billion galaxies...</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T01:50:18.890Z
See the example of naming in the quote below:                    "Dr. Stefan Dreizler, an astronomer at the University of Göttingen and his colleagues analyzed data collected over two years with the MUSE instrument. The new data from the University of Warsaw’s Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope enabled the team to measure the mass of the black hole and confirm their findings. Named NGC 1850 BH1, the black hole is roughly 11 times as massive as our Sun."         http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/stellar-mass-black-hole-ngc-1850-bh1-10264.html
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T02:05:40.477Z
Not sure what you are asking here.  But I don't think it changes my answer. No there is no catalogue that fulfils your criteria
James K
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T14:30:43.513Z
This is correct: there is no such general catalog. (Speaking as someone who studies supermassive black holes and would probably know about such a thing if it existed.)
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T14:36:12.447Z
There is the Million Quasars Catalog (https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/milliquas.html), which currently has about 1.5 million active galactic nuclei (i.e., accreting supermassive black holes). It won't have the hundred or so *non-accreting* supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies that have been identified by dynamical measurements (motions of star or gas around the galaxy center), including the Milky Way's own supermassive black hole.
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:05:43.013Z
Are we not considering black holes found by gravitational wave detections?
Daddy Kropotkin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:31:19.107Z
@DaddyKropotkin The question specifically mentions GW detections (which are in yet another specialized catalog).
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:56:08.680Z
@Peter Erwin Does the name "NGC 1850 BH1" (the name of the Galaxy appended with the symbol BHn, where ,"n" is the sequential counting number) - follow the standard  naming convention developed for naming black holes (or the standard naming convention for black holes doesn't exist?)
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T18:23:28.397Z
@Alex There certainly isn't any such naming convention for supermassive black holes, and most stellar-mass black holes are named for their associated visible (or X-ray) source (e.g., Cygnus X-1, SS 433). I can find only one other use of "BH1" for a black-hole candidate, which is the "failed supernova" N6946-BH1 in the galaxy NGCC 6946 (e.g., https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019RNAAS...3..164H/abstract). Perhaps we're seeing the beginning of a naming convention... (Side note: NGC 1850 is a star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, not a galaxy.)
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-27T01:45:47.743Z
@Peter Erwin https://arxiv.org/abs/1101.3309
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-27T11:31:02.307Z
@Alex NGC 1850 is star cluster inside the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy; it is not a separate galaxy (and it is especially not an Ultra Compact or Ultra Faint Dwarf galaxy, which is what the paper you link to is about).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1850
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-27T15:35:52.000Z
@Peter Erwin To me, this referred paper isn't just narrowly focused discussion of Ultra Compact or Ultra Faint Dwarf galaxies: it appears that above topic was just a motivation for more broadly oriented discussion - based on the quote (see below) from there:  "The debate on the origin and nature of UCDs, and the recently discovered ultra-faint dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies which contain very few stars, has motivated us to ask the question `what is a galaxy?' Our aim here is to promote further discussion of how to define a galaxy and, in particular, what separates it from a star cluster."
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-06-11T18:20:25.207Z
NASA has announced that it has isolated the mass and location of what could be a “wandering” black hole using the Hubble Space Telescope. This is the first time in the space agency’s history it has been able to achieve this, despite there being over 100 million black holes populating our galaxy. petapixel.com/2022/06/10/… nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/…
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-25T23:59:39.687Z
2021-11-26T00:07:58.050Z
2021-11-26T00:07:58.050Z
James K
<p>Is there a comprehensive catalog of all known black holes?
If &quot;yes&quot; - does it include the method of the black hole discovery and it's location in the Universe?
Are black holes, detected only by the capture of gravitational waves, generated due to their merge with another black hole or with neutron star, listed there?</p>
<p>See the example of naming in the quote below:</p>
<p>&quot;Dr. Stefan Dreizler, an astronomer at the University of Göttingen and his colleagues analyzed data collected over two years with the MUSE instrument. The new data from the University of Warsaw’s Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope enabled the team to measure the mass of the black hole and confirm their findings. Named NGC 1850 BH1, the black hole is roughly 11 times as massive as our Sun.&quot;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/stellar-mass-black-hole-ngc-1850-bh1-10264.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/stellar-mass-black-hole-ngc-1850-bh1-10264.html</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-25T20:59:45.407Z
Are you aware of black holes in x-ray binaries?
Daddy Kropotkin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-25T22:54:16.440Z
@Daddy Kropotkin - thanks but how your comment question relates to my question re existence of the black holes catalog?
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-25T23:22:54.220Z
Could you edit the "scientifically" out of your title? How else would it be kept, if it exists? Unscientifically, bu Covid-19 denialists? It's somewhat confusing when reading your question. Contrary to popular thinking, the word 'scientific' isn't a magic faerie that makes all problems go away in an argument.
AtmosphericPrisonEscape
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-25T23:39:47.977Z
@AtmosphericPrisonEscape Made the change per your request ))
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T09:24:26.053Z
Related if not duplicate: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/39117/34513
Jean-Marie Prival
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T15:25:24.267Z
"Are black holes, detected only by the capture of gravitational waves"? And then you quote an example of one that has been discovered by gravitational lensing...
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T15:52:15.517Z
@ProfRob - Thanks, yes. You could make my question to be the duplicate of the one you have found.
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:06:42.290Z
I asked because I was not sure if you're asking about black holes detected from electromagnetic or gravitational-wave observations. Your question was rather confusing, as others have noted. There are now three catalogues released by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration in which they report the observation of black holes
Daddy Kropotkin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:28:36.967Z
@ProfRob The quoted BH example (NGC 1850 BH1) was discovered by measuring radial velocity variations in the visible companion; no gravitational lensing was involved. (You have to read the actual paper to understand this; the sci-news.com article is a garbled condensation of an ESO press release.)
Peter Erwin
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:41:07.473Z
@Daddy Kropotkin My question was not quite confusing - besides asking whether catalog of black holes exists, it was additionally asking (if such catalog exists) whether such catalog includes black holes, detected only by the capture of gravitational waves, generated due to their merge with another black hole or with neutron star.
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T16:54:47.813Z
Does the name "NGC 1850 BH1" (the name of the Galaxy appended with the symbol BHn, where ,"n" is the sequential counting number) - follow the standard  naming convention developed for naming black holes (or the standard naming convention for black holes doesn't exist?)?
Alex
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-11-26T17:27:24.187Z
Well, you're question actually asks about "all" black holes, which depends on how the black holes are detected, which is why I asked my question. Different detection methods have different catalogues.
Daddy Kropotkin
<black-hole>
Is there a comprehensive catalog of all known black holes?
Alex
# Is there a comprehensive catalog of all known black holes?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-11-25)

Is there a comprehensive catalog of all known black holes?
If "yes" - does it include the method of the black hole discovery and it's location in the Universe?
Are black holes, detected only by the capture of gravitational waves, generated due to their merge with another black hole or with neutron star, listed there?

See the example of naming in the quote below:

"Dr. Stefan Dreizler, an astronomer at the University of Göttingen and his colleagues analyzed data collected over two years with the MUSE instrument. The new data from the University of Warsaw’s Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope enabled the team to measure the mass of the black hole and confirm their findings. Named NGC 1850 BH1, the black hole is roughly 11 times as massive as our Sun."

<http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/stellar-mass-black-hole-ngc-1850-bh1-10264.html>

**Tags:** black-hole
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Are you aware of black holes in x-ray binaries?  
> **username_0**: @Daddy Kropotkin - thanks but how your comment question relates to my question re existence of the black holes catalog?  
> **username_2**: Could you edit the "scientifically" out of your title? How else would it be kept, if it exists? Unscientifically, bu Covid-19 denialists? It's somewhat confusing when reading your question. Contrary to popular thinking, the word 'scientific' isn't a magic faerie that makes all problems go away in an argument.  
> **username_0**: @AtmosphericPrisonEscape Made the change per your request ))  
> **username_3**: Related if not duplicate: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/39117/34513  
> **username_4**: "Are black holes, detected only by the capture of gravitational waves"? And then you quote an example of one that has been discovered by gravitational lensing...  
> **username_0**: @ProfRob - Thanks, yes. You could make my question to be the duplicate of the one you have found.  
> **username_1**: I asked because I was not sure if you're asking about black holes detected from electromagnetic or gravitational-wave observations. Your question was rather confusing, as others have noted. There are now three catalogues released by the LIGO/Virgo collaboration in which they report the observation of black holes  
> **username_5**: @ProfRob The quoted BH example (NGC 1850 BH1) was discovered by measuring radial velocity variations in the visible companion; no gravitational lensing was involved. (You have to read the actual paper to understand this; the sci-news.com article is a garbled condensation of an ESO press release.)  
> **username_0**: @Daddy Kropotkin My question was not quite confusing - besides asking whether catalog of black holes exists, it was additionally asking (if such catalog exists) whether such catalog includes black holes, detected only by the capture of gravitational waves, generated due to their merge with another black hole or with neutron star.  
> **username_0**: Does the name "NGC 1850 BH1" (the name of the Galaxy appended with the symbol BHn, where ,"n" is the sequential counting number) - follow the standard  naming convention developed for naming black holes (or the standard naming convention for black holes doesn't exist?)?  
> **username_1**: Well, you're question actually asks about "all" black holes, which depends on how the black holes are detected, which is why I asked my question. Different detection methods have different catalogues.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2021-11-25. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

No, this doesn't seem to exist.

Hard to prove a negative, but if such a thing existed then you'd expect it to be referenced by Wikipedia (etc). It would be a very useful source for its "[List of Black Holes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_holes)". No such catalogue is mentioned which tends to suggest it doesn't exist.

Secondly, most catalogues list *sources*, not *objects*. So there are catalogues of "X-ray sources". Some of these sources are interpreted as being stellar-mass black-holes.

There are many types of observation that can imply a black hole: AGC, X-ray binary, Lensing events, Gravitational wave and others. As catalogues list observations and sources, not objects, you are less likely to find a "catalogue" of black holes.

Many objects are only "probably" black holes, or "possible black holes", with different levels of uncertainty. This also tends to prevent a *comprehensive* catalogue. For some sources the evidence that the object is a black hole is stronger, for others it is more equivocal.

However see [Robert Johnston's list of black hole candidates](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/relativity/bhctable.html) although it is rather outdated.

The [Catalog of High-Mass X-Ray Binaries in the Galaxy](https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/hmxbcat.html) lists sources of X-rays, identifying those that are black hole candidates. It doesn't claim to be a comprehensive list of black holes, and excludes those found by (for example) lensing.

Finally, it is thought that every (or nearly every) substantial galaxy has a supermassive black-hole. To create a truly comprehensive catalogue, you would need to include several billion galaxies...

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: See the example of naming in the quote below:                    "Dr. Stefan Dreizler, an astronomer at the University of Göttingen and his colleagues analyzed data collected over two years with the MUSE instrument. The new data from the University of Warsaw’s Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope enabled the team to measure the mass of the black hole and confirm their findings. Named NGC 1850 BH1, the black hole is roughly 11 times as massive as our Sun."         http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/stellar-mass-black-hole-ngc-1850-bh1-10264.html  
> **username_6**: Not sure what you are asking here.  But I don't think it changes my answer. No there is no catalogue that fulfils your criteria  
> **username_5**: This is correct: there is no such general catalog. (Speaking as someone who studies supermassive black holes and would probably know about such a thing if it existed.)  
> **username_5**: There is the Million Quasars Catalog (https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/milliquas.html), which currently has about 1.5 million active galactic nuclei (i.e., accreting supermassive black holes). It won't have the hundred or so *non-accreting* supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies that have been identified by dynamical measurements (motions of star or gas around the galaxy center), including the Milky Way's own supermassive black hole.  
> **username_1**: Are we not considering black holes found by gravitational wave detections?  
> **username_5**: @DaddyKropotkin The question specifically mentions GW detections (which are in yet another specialized catalog).  
> **username_0**: @Peter Erwin Does the name "NGC 1850 BH1" (the name of the Galaxy appended with the symbol BHn, where ,"n" is the sequential counting number) - follow the standard  naming convention developed for naming black holes (or the standard naming convention for black holes doesn't exist?)  
> **username_5**: @Alex There certainly isn't any such naming convention for supermassive black holes, and most stellar-mass black holes are named for their associated visible (or X-ray) source (e.g., Cygnus X-1, SS 433). I can find only one other use of "BH1" for a black-hole candidate, which is the "failed supernova" N6946-BH1 in the galaxy NGCC 6946 (e.g., https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019RNAAS...3..164H/abstract). Perhaps we're seeing the beginning of a naming convention... (Side note: NGC 1850 is a star cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, not a galaxy.)  
> **username_0**: @Peter Erwin https://arxiv.org/abs/1101.3309  
> **username_5**: @Alex NGC 1850 is star cluster inside the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy; it is not a separate galaxy (and it is especially not an Ultra Compact or Ultra Faint Dwarf galaxy, which is what the paper you link to is about). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1850  
> **username_0**: @Peter Erwin To me, this referred paper isn't just narrowly focused discussion of Ultra Compact or Ultra Faint Dwarf galaxies: it appears that above topic was just a motivation for more broadly oriented discussion - based on the quote (see below) from there:  "The debate on the origin and nature of UCDs, and the recently discovered ultra-faint dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies which contain very few stars, has motivated us to ask the question `what is a galaxy?' Our aim here is to promote further discussion of how to define a galaxy and, in particular, what separates it from a star cluster."  
> **username_0**: NASA has announced that it has isolated the mass and location of what could be a “wandering” black hole using the Hubble Space Telescope. This is the first time in the space agency’s history it has been able to achieve this, despite there being over 100 million black holes populating our galaxy. petapixel.com/2022/06/10/… nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/…  

---

