The Taurus, Perseus, and California cloud complexes

Post date: Sep 30, 2010 3:07:24 PM

This is paper III of the 2MASS wide field extinction maps series, this time mapping of a large region in the sky (~ 3500 deg²) towards the directions of Taurus, Perseus, and Aries. The map was constructed with the colors of ~23 million stars. We find a ~ 25° × 15° region close to the galactic plane (l ~ 135°, b ~ -14°) with small extinction (A_K < 0.04 mag); we name this region the Perseus-Andromeda hole. The maps have an amazing wealth of new information on molecular cloud structure, and are just gorgeous to look at.