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 sq deg area of the cloud to a limiting magnitude of K = 10.0. Photometry in the 1.2-2.2 micron passbands from 2MASS is combined with photometry at longer infrared wavelengths (3.6-12 micron) 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 2-29 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 microns.

References in corpus (12)

• The Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) for the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Color Transformations for the 2MASS Second Incremental Data Release
• The XMM-Newton Extended Survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud (XEST)
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• Spitzer Space Telescope Spectroscopy of Ices toward Low Mass Embedded Protostars
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• The NGC 7129 Young Stellar Cluster: A Combined Spitzer, MMT, and 2MASS Census of Disks, Protostars, and Outflows
• Multi-epoch VLBA observations of T Tauri South
• Structure Function Scaling of a 2MASS Extinction Map of Taurus
• Coronal abundances of X-ray bright pre-main sequence stars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud
• Fully Sampled Maps of Ices and Silicates in Front of Cepheus A East with Spitzer

Cited by in corpus (12)

• The Taurus Spitzer Survey: New Candidate Taurus Members Selected Using Sensitive Mid-Infrared Photometry
• The relation between gas and dust in the Taurus Molecular Cloud
• Observational $5-20\mu$m Interstellar Extinction Curves Toward Star-Forming Regions Derived from Spitzer IRS Spectra
• Oxygen Depletion in the Interstellar Medium: Implications for Grain Models and the Distribution of Elemental Oxygen
• Evidence for dust evolution within the Taurus Complex from Spitzer images
• Ices in the Quiescent IC 5146 Dense Cloud
• A survey of H${}_2$O, CO${}_2$ and CO ice features towards background stars and low mass YSOs using AKARI
• The Nature of Carbon Dioxide Bearing Ices in Quiescent Molecular Clouds
• Probing Interstellar Grain Growth Through Polarimetry in the Taurus Cloud Complex
• Study of magnetic field geometry and extinction in Bok globule CB130
• Chemical and Physical Conditions in Molecular Cloud Core DC 000.4-19.5 (SL42) in Corona Australis
• An Improved Pair Method to Probe the Dust Extinction Law