A Catalog of 1022 Bright Contact Binary Stars

In this work we describe a large new sample of contact binary stars extracted in a uniformmanner from sky patrol data taken by theROTSE-I telescope. ExtensiveROTSE-I light-curve data are combinedwith J-,H-, andK-band near-infrared data taken from theTwoMicronAll Sky Survey to add color information. Contact binary candidates are selected using the observed period-color relation. Candidates are confirmed by visual examination of the light curves. To enhance the utility of this catalog, we derive a new J H period-color-luminosity relation and use this to estimate distances for the entire catalog. From these distance estimates we derive an estimated contact binary space density of 1:7 0:6 ð Þ ; 10 5 pc .