E.F. Schlafly
A Large Catalog of Accurate Distances to Molecular Clouds from PS1 Photometry
Schlafly, E.F.; Green, G.; Finkbeiner, D.P.; Rix, H.-W.; Bell, E.F.; Burgett, W.S.; Chambers, K.C.; Draper, P.W.; Hodapp, K.W.; Kaiser, N.; Magnier, E.A.; Martin, N.F.; Metcalfe, N.; Price, P.A.; Tonry, J.L.
Authors
G. Green
D.P. Finkbeiner
H.-W. Rix
E.F. Bell
W.S. Burgett
K.C. Chambers
Dr Peter Draper p.w.draper@durham.ac.uk
Senior Computer Programmer
K.W. Hodapp
N. Kaiser
E.A. Magnier
N.F. Martin
Dr Nigel Metcalfe nigel.metcalfe@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor
P.A. Price
J.L. Tonry
Abstract
Distance measurements to molecular clouds are important but are often made separately for each cloud of interest, employing very different data and techniques. We present a large, homogeneous catalog of distances to molecular clouds, most of which are of unprecedented accuracy. We determine distances using optical photometry of stars along lines of sight toward these clouds, obtained from PanSTARRS-1. We simultaneously infer the reddenings and distances to these stars, tracking the full probability distribution function using a technique presented in Green et al. We fit these star-by-star measurements using a simple dust screen model to find the distance to each cloud. We thus estimate the distances to almost all of the clouds in the Magnani et al. catalog, as well as many other well-studied clouds, including Orion, Perseus, Taurus, Cepheus, Polaris, California, and Monoceros R2, avoiding only the inner Galaxy. Typical statistical uncertainties in the distances are 5%, though the systematic uncertainty stemming from the quality of our stellar models is about 10%. The resulting catalog is the largest catalog of accurate, directly measured distances to molecular clouds. Our distance estimates are generally consistent with available distance estimates from the literature, though in some cases the literature estimates are off by a factor of more than two.
Citation
Schlafly, E., Green, G., Finkbeiner, D., Rix, H., Bell, E., Burgett, W., …Tonry, J. (2014). A Large Catalog of Accurate Distances to Molecular Clouds from PS1 Photometry. Astrophysical Journal, 786(1), Article 29. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/786/1/29
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Mar 4, 2014 |
Publication Date | May 1, 2014 |
Deposit Date | Jun 16, 2015 |
Publicly Available Date | Jun 30, 2015 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Print ISSN | 0004-637X |
Electronic ISSN | 1538-4357 |
Publisher | American Astronomical Society |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 786 |
Issue | 1 |
Article Number | 29 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/786/1/29 |
Keywords | Dust, Extinction; ISM: clouds. |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1403781 |
Files
Published Journal Article
(915 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
© 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
You might also like
Pan-STARRS Pixel Analysis: Source Detection and Characterization
(2020)
Journal Article
The Pan-STARRS1 Database and Data Products
(2020)
Journal Article
The Pan-STARRS Data-processing System
(2020)
Journal Article
Pan-STARRS Photometric and Astrometric Calibration
(2020)
Journal Article
Pan-STARRS Pixel Processing: Detrending, Warping, Stacking
(2020)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search