Re: stellar density as a function of magnitude

[Tom Droege <droege@wwa.com>]

I agree with Arne here.  But it is just my view.  I would rather build a 
quality catalog that others can reference with confidence than to win the 
"most variables discovered" prize.  Sadly, this may be a problem for me as 
I am not in a good location.

I will still hedge my bet by keeping the raw data.  Later we can mine this 
mag 14-15 data with less strict parameters.  We can then publish it for 
what it is.

Tom Droege

At 08:10 AM 6/2/00 -0700, you wrote:
>The photometric question is one of the reasons behind
>my suggestion that we not try to measure the faintest
>stars on an image.  Not only do you have contaminating
>fainter stars in your measurement aperture, but they
>also contribute to the sky measurement.  It is much
>easier to build a quality catalog from the brighter
>stars, and you will have plenty of them anyway.
>   For identifying blends, I'd rather use UCAC than
>the other catalogs.  Remember, the POSS plates saturate
>stars starting about V=14 so companions get difficult
>to see.  The POSS-II scans are almost unusable near
>the Bulge.  Also, proper motion is not insignificant in
>the galactic plane fields; UCAC is a modern, CCD-based
>catalog with about the same magnitude limits as are
>reachable by TASS.
>Arne