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StarCAT: A Catalog of Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph Ultraviolet Echelle Spectra of Stars
StarCAT is a catalog of high resolution ultraviolet spectra of objectsclassified as "stars," recorded by Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph(STIS) during its initial seven years of operations (1997-2004). StarCATis based on 3184 echelle observations of 545 distinct targets, with atotal exposure duration of 5.2 Ms. For many of the objects, broadultraviolet coverage has been achieved by splicing echellegrams taken intwo or more FUV (1150-1700 Å) and/or NUV (1600-3100 Å)settings. In cases of multiple pointings on conspicuously variablesources, spectra were separated into independent epochs. Otherwise,different epochs were combined to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio(S/N). A post-facto correction to the {\sf calstis} pipeline data setscompensated for subtle wavelength distortions identified in a previousstudy of the STIS calibration lamps. An internal "fluxing" procedureyielded coherent spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for objects withbroadly overlapping wavelength coverage. The best StarCAT materialachieves 300 m s-1 internal velocity precision;absolute accuracy at the 1 km s-1 level; photometricaccuracy of order 4%; and relative flux precision several times better(limited mainly by knowledge of SEDs of UV standard stars). WhileStarCAT represents a milestone in the large-scale post-processing ofSTIS echellegrams, a number of potential improvements in the underlying"final" pipeline are identified.
| Ultraviolet Survey of CO and H2 in Diffuse Molecular Clouds: The Reflection of Two Photochemistry Regimes in Abundance Relationships
We carried out a comprehensive far-UV survey of 12CO andH2 column densities along diffuse molecular Galactic sightlines. This sample includes new measurements of CO from HST spectraalong 62 sight lines and new measurements of H2 from FUSEdata along 58 sight lines. In addition, high-resolution optical datawere obtained at the McDonald and European Southern Observatories,yielding new abundances for CH, CH+, and CN along 42 sightlines to aid in interpreting the CO results. These new sight lines wereselected according to detectable amounts of CO in their spectra andprovide information on both lower density (<=100 cm-3) andhigher density diffuse clouds. A plot of logN(CO) versuslogN(H2) shows that two power-law relationships are neededfor a good fit of the entire sample, with a break located atlogN(CO,cm-2)=14.1 and logN(H2)=20.4,corresponding to a change in production route for CO in higher densitygas. Similar logarithmic plots among all five diatomic molecules revealadditional examples of dual slopes in the cases of CO versus CH (breakat logN=14.1, 13.0), CH+ versus H2 (13.1, 20.3),and CH+ versus CO (13.2, 14.1). We employ both analytical andnumerical chemical schemes in order to derive details of the molecularenvironments. In the denser gas, where C2 and CN moleculesalso reside, reactions involving C+ and OH are the dominantfactor leading to CO formation via equilibrium chemistry. In thelow-density gas, where equilibrium chemistry studies have failed toreproduce the abundance of CH+, our numerical analysis showsthat nonequilibrium chemistry must be employed for correctly predictingthe abundances of both CH+ and CO.
| New Estimates of the Solar-Neighborhood Massive Star Birthrate and the Galactic Supernova Rate
The birthrate of stars of masses >=10 Msolar is estimatedfrom a sample of just over 400 O3-B2 dwarfs within 1.5 kpc of the Sunand the result extrapolated to estimate the Galactic supernova ratecontributed by such stars. The solar-neighborhood Galactic-plane massivestar birthrate is estimated at ~176 stars kpc-3Myr-1. On the basis of a model in which the Galactic stellardensity distribution comprises a ``disk+central hole'' like that of thedust infrared emission (as proposed by Drimmel and Spergel), theGalactic supernova rate is estimated at probably not less than ~1 normore than ~2 per century and the number of O3-B2 dwarfs within the solarcircle at ~200,000.
| Local interstellar medium kinematics towards the Southern Coalsack and Chamaeleon-Musca dark clouds
We present the results of a spectroscopic programme aiming toinvestigate the kinematics of the local interstellar medium componentstowards the Southern Coalsack and Chamaeleon-Musca dark clouds. Theanalysis is based upon high-resolution (R~ 60000) spectra of theinterstellar Na I D absorption lines towards 63 B-type stars (d<= 500pc) selected to cover these clouds and the connecting area defined bythe Galactic coordinates: 308°>=l>= 294° and-22°<=b<= 5°. The radial velocities, column densities,velocity dispersions, colour excess and photometric distances to thestars are used to understand the kinematics and distribution of theinterstellar cloud components. The analysis indicates that theinterstellar gas is distributed in two extended sheet-like structurespermeating the whole area, one at d<= 60 pc and another around120-150 pc from the Sun. The nearby feature is approaching the localstandard of rest with an average radial velocity of -7 kms-1, has low average column density logNNaI~ 11.2cm-2 and velocity dispersion b~ 5 km s-1. The moredistant feature has column densities between 12.3 <=logNNaI<= 13.2, average velocity dispersion b~ 2.5 kms-1 and seems associated with the dust sheet observed towardsthe Coalsack, Musca and Chamaeleon direction. Its velocity is centredaround 0 km s-1, but there is a trend for increasing from -3km s-1 near b= 1° to 3 km s-1 near b=-18°.The nearby low column density feature indicates a general outflow fromthe Sco-Cen association, in agreement with several independent lines ofdata in the general searched direction. The dust and gas feature around120-150 pc seem to be part of an extended large-scale feature of similarkinematic properties, supposedly identified with the interaction zone ofthe Local and Loop I Bubbles. Assuming that the interface and thering-like volume of dense neutral matter that would have been formedduring the collision of the two bubbles have similar properties, ourresults suggest that the interaction zone between the bubbles is twistedand folded.
| Catalog of Galactic OB Stars
An all-sky catalog of Galactic OB stars has been created by extendingthe Case-Hamburg Galactic plane luminous-stars surveys to include 5500additional objects drawn from the literature. This work brings the totalnumber of known or reasonably suspected OB stars to over 16,000.Companion databases of UBVβ photometry and MK classifications forthese objects include nearly 30,000 and 20,000 entries, respectively.
| Ultra-high-resolution observations of CH in Southern Molecular Cloud envelopes
We present a mini-survey of ultrahigh-resolution spectroscopy (UHRS) ofCH towards three southern molecular cloud envelopes. The sightlines areselected to probe physically similar gas in different Galacticenvironments. With a velocity resolution of ~0.5kms-1(R=575000) these observations resolve most kinematic components of theabsorption lines. We do, however, detect one line component in the Lupusregion, which is not resolved and for which an upper limit ofb<0.3kms-1 is found. We find a correlation betweendistance of the absorbing gas from the Galactic mid-plane and thefractional abundance of CH. We show that this correlation can beexplained as being a result of a fall-off in the ultraviolet radiationfield intensity and propose that CH observations in carefully selectedsightlines might allow a mapping of the variations in the interstellarradiation field.
| New periodic variables from the Hipparcos epoch photometry
Two selection statistics are used to extract new candidate periodicvariables from the epoch photometry of the Hipparcos catalogue. Theprimary selection criterion is a signal-to-noise ratio. The dependenceof this statistic on the number of observations is calibrated usingabout 30000 randomly permuted Hipparcos data sets. A significance levelof 0.1 per cent is used to extract a first batch of candidate variables.The second criterion requires that the optimal frequency be unaffectedif the data are de-trended by low-order polynomials. We find 2675 newcandidate periodic variables, of which the majority (2082) are from theHipparcos`unsolved' variables. Potential problems with theinterpretation of the data (e.g. aliasing) are discussed.
| Walraven photometry of nearby southern OB associations
Homogeneous Walraven (VBLUW) photometry is presented for 5260 stars inthe regions of five nearby southern OB associations: Scorpio Centaurus(Sco OB2), Orion OB1, Canis Major OB1, Monoceros OB1, and Scutum OB2.Derived V and (B - V) in the Johnson system are included.
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Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Croix du Sud |
| Right ascension: | 12h18m06.75s |
| Declination: | -61°28'11.6" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 7.507 |
| Distance: | 495.05 parsecs |
| Proper motion RA: | -9.7 |
| Proper motion Dec: | -8.1 |
| B-T magnitude: | 7.49 |
| V-T magnitude: | 7.506 |
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INHABITED SKY
