A LARGE CATALOG OF ACCURATE DISTANCES TO MOLECULAR CLOUDS FROM PS1 PHOTOMETRY

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 distance...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2014-05, Vol.786 (1), p.1-15
Main Authors: 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
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ACCURACY
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
Clouds
COSMIC GASES
DISTANCE
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
DUSTS
Estimates
GALAXIES
Molecular clouds
MOLECULES
PHOTOMETRY
STARS
Tracking
Uncertainty
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/786/1/29