The Standard Star Newsletter

Note: The following abstracts are all from the meeting THE FUTURE OF PHOTOMETRIC, SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC AND POLARIMETRIC STANDARDIZATION, a workshop organised in Blankenberge, Belgium 8–11 May 2006, editor Christiaan Sterken, ASP Conf. Series 2007, in press. Standardization in the Classical UBV RI Photometric System A. U. Landolt Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana U.S.A. 70803-4001 There occur projected against the celestial sphere a wide range of phenomena for which observers and experimenters need intensity and color information. A fundamental datum for celestial objects is their intensity measured along the electromagnetic spectrum. Through considered choices of filters, one may establish photometric systems which isolate portions of the spectrum, and such systems in turn may be used to define color indices. Therefore, there is a long-term need for accurate photometric standard stars, those with known intensities and color indices at a variety of wavelengths. References to history will set the stage for introduction of the UBV RI photometric system. It provides a common thread with previous centuries of photometry, and can provide similar continuity to the future. Much of this contribution will be a discussion of a set of procedures which may be followed, and some of the pitfalls that may be encountered, in establishing a useful optical photometric system. Improved Photometric Accuracy and the Creation of an All-sky High-Accuracy Stellar Standard System Aleksey Mironov, Andrey Zakharov and Anna Ambartsumyan Sternberg Astronomical institute, Moscow, Russia Some astrophotometry problems require accuracy within 0.001-0.003 mag, both in the random and systematic sense. Many research teams are planning now to carry out new sky surveys. These surveys will be made in different photometric systems and each photometric system will need its own standards. Thus the main problem of photometric standardization becomes a task to construct the fundamental photometric catalog. Magnitudes of stars in the catalog have to be easily transformed to any specified photometric system without sacrifice of accuracy.