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Published June 2008 | Published
Journal Article Open

A catalog of background stars reddened by dust in the Taurus Dark Clouds

Abstract

Normal field stars located behind dense clouds are a valuable resource in interstellar astrophysics, as they provide continua in which to study phenomena such as gas-phase and solid-state absorption features, interstellar extinction, and polarization. This paper reports the results of a search for highly reddened stars behind the Taurus Dark Cloud complex. We use the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Point Source Catalog to survey a ~50 deg^2 area of the cloud to a limiting magnitude of K_s = 10.0. Photometry in the 1.2-2.2 μm passbands from 2MASS is combined with photometry at longer infrared wavelengths (3.6-12 μm) from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite to provide effective discrimination between reddened field stars and young stellar objects (YSOs) embedded in the cloud. Our final catalog contains 248 confirmed or probable background field stars, together with estimates of their total visual extinctions, which span the range 2 < A_V < 29 mag. We also identify the 2MASS source J04292083+2742074 (IRAS 04262+2735) as a previously unrecognized candidate YSO, based on the presence of infrared emission greatly in excess of that predicted for a normal reddened photosphere at wavelengths > 5 μm.

Additional Information

© 2008 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2007 December 7; accepted 2008 January 23. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Two Micron All Sky Survey is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. The Taurus IRAC Point Source Archive uses IRAC data processed from the Taurus Spitzer Legacy Survey (PID 3584, PI Deborah Padgett). We are grateful to Barbara Whitney and Marilyn Meade for making the unpublished IRAC data available to us. Extensive use was also made of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. Financial support for this research was provided by NASA (grant NAG 05-12750 and JPL/Caltech Support Agreement 1264149).

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August 22, 2023
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