Grey Milky Way extinction from SDSS stellar photometry

We report results concerning the distribution and properties of galactic extinction at high galactic latitudes derived from stellar statistics using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We use the classical Wolf diagram method to identify regions with extinction, and derive the extinction and the ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2010-01, Vol.401 (1), p.231-241
Main Authors: Gorbikov, Evgeny, Brosch, Noah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomy
Dust
dust, extinction
extinction
galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo
Milky Way
Spectrum analysis
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Summary:We report results concerning the distribution and properties of galactic extinction at high galactic latitudes derived from stellar statistics using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We use the classical Wolf diagram method to identify regions with extinction, and derive the extinction and the extinction law of the dust using all five SDSS spectral bands. We estimate the distance to the extinguishing medium using simple assumptions about the stellar populations in the line of sight. We report the identification of three extinguishing clouds, each a few tens of pc wide, producing 0.2–0.4 mag of g′-band extinction, located 1–2 kpc away or 0.5–1 kpc above the Galactic plane. All clouds exhibit grey extinction, i.e. almost wavelength independent in the limited spectral range of the SDSS. We discuss the implication of this finding on general astrophysical questions.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15624.x