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The Shape of the Interstellar Reddening Curvel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2017

Anne B. Underhill
Affiliation:
Dominion Astrophysical Observatory Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Gordon A. H. Walker
Affiliation:
Dominion Astrophysical Observatory Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Extract

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When the Observed Spectral Intensity Distribution of an early-type star has been freed from the distortions caused by absorption in the Earth's atmosphere and by instrumental sensitivity factors, it is a measure of the true spectral intensity distribution of the star and of the modifications to that distribution caused by the interstellar material between the Earth and the star. Thus, if one knew the true intensity distribution from the star, one could derive the shape of the interstellar reddening curve. In practice it is customary to compare the intensity distributions of pairs of stars of apparently the same spectral type, within the errors of classification, but which suffer different amounts of reddening, and to attribute the difference to interstellar reddening. In this way one can determine the shape of the interstellar reddening curve.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer Academic Publishers 1965

Footnotes

1

The contents of this paper were published previously in the Monthly Notices of the Roy. Astron. Soc., vol. 131, 1966, pp. 475-481.

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