COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
              INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                           Number 3492


                                             Konkoly Observatory
                                             Budapest
                                             17 July 1990

                                             HU ISSN 0374 - 0676



      A Catalog of Contact and Near-Contact Binary Stars

    We have compiled a catalog of 1346 contact and near-contact
binary system including the class of binaries with the light curves of W
UMa and beta Lyr types. Some eclipsing systems and systems with Algol type
light curves have also been included in the catalog if both components of the
system are close in size to their inner critical Roche surfaces, or if the
system is similar by physical properties to W UMa type.
    The catalog has five tables and individual notes. Stars appear in the
catalog in order of their variable star names as in the "General Catalogue of
Variable Stars". The first two tables were almost exclusively extracted
from the fourth edition of the "General Catalogue of Variable Stars". The
first table contains cross references, equatorial coordinates for the
equinox 1950.0, the annual precession in the equatorial coordinates for the
same equinox, and the type of variability. The second table contains the
spectral type, maximum and minimum brightness, and light elements. The
remaining part of the catalog contains in three tables information on the
available photometric, spectroscopic, orbital and physical properties of the
systems. Unfortunately such properties are available only for a small
fraction of the known contact and near-contact binary systems. A
bibliography and notes for each star are included to direct interested
workers to primary references for each of the system.
    The catalog is available on request from the authors in Macintosh
diskettes.


                  OSMAN DEMIRCAN
                  SELIM O. SELAM
                  Ankara University Observatory and
                  Astronomy Department, Science Faculty,
                  06100 Besevler, Ankara, TURKEY