  An up-to-date catalog of nearby galaxies considered as hosts of binary
compact objects is provided with complete information about sky position,
distance, extinction-corrected blue luminosity and error estimates. With our
current understanding of binary evolution, rates of formation and coalescence
for binary compact objects scale with massive-star formation and hence the
(extinction-corrected) blue luminosity of host galaxies. Coalescence events in
binary compact objects are among the most promising gravitational-wave sources
for ground-based gravitational-wave detectors such as LIGO. Our catalog and
associated error estimates are important for the interpretation of analyses,
carried out for LIGO, to constrain the rates of compact binary coalescence,
given an astrophysical population model for the sources considered. We discuss
how the notion of effective distance, created to account for the antenna
pattern of a gravitational-wave detector, must be used in conjunction with our
catalog. We note that the catalog provided can be used on other astronomical
analysis of populations that scale with galaxy blue luminosity.
