A CATALOG OF ABSORPTION IN THE SPECTRA OF QUASI-STELLAR OBJECTS

This paper contains a compilation of basic information on QSO absorption systems. A total of 724 QSOs are listed in three tables. Table 1 contains 353 QSOs that have absorption-line systems with measured redshifts. The numerous Ly-alpha forest systems based only on narrow hydrogen lines are excluded from Table 1. Absorption systems with multiple components are listed only once if all of the components fall within a span of 500 km s-1. A total of 862 systems with narrow metal lines which we consider to be reliably identified are listed in Table 1. Table 1 contains an additional 260 systems consisting of less certain systems, damped Ly-alpha systems, and Lyman limit systems that have no detected narrow metal lines. In Table 2 we list 146 broad absorption line QSOs. Fifteen of these have narrow absorption line systems identified, and thus they also appear in Table 1. In Table 3 we give an inhomogeneous list of 240 QSOs in which absorption systems have been seen but not measured. Also shown are histograms of emission redshift, absorption redshift, and (1 + Z(em))/(1 + Z(abs)) for the reliably identified narrow metal line systems. Several selection effects are apparent in this collection of data.