The reason for this convention is historic. In files prior to 1991 you will find quite a number of records without a TTTT-TTTT value. At this time only the date of the magnitude distribution was stored. Moreover, no sitecode was stored for a number of magnitude distributions. Solar longitudes refer to 2000.0.
Some records have no geographical coordinates of the location.
These locations must be retraced in the corresponding rate file. Remarks It is a tremendous work to maintain a database of such comprehensiveness. Several amateur astronomers have contributed to the VMDB, either entering data or introducing the standards. If you encounter any inconsistency in the data, do not hesitate to let us know. If you encounter a mis-spelled name of an observer or location drop a message too.