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Statistical Investigations of the Luminosity Distribution of the Spectroscopic White Dwarf Sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Edward M. Sion*
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, Villanova University

Extract

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In the nine years since Symposium No. 42 at St. Andrews, Scotland, the number of spectroscopically identified white dwarfs has grown from 285 then to over 750 spectroscopic degenerates now. Significant increases in the number and quality of faint star parallaxes and the multichannel spectrophotometry at the 5.1m Hale reflector by Jesse Greenstein has made possible a major breakthrough in the color-luminosity relation for white dwarfs. Of the present sample only ninety-one stars lack measured colors. Over 300 white dwarfs have multichannel colors while over 200 have Strömgren photometry due primarily to Graham (1972), Eggen and Bessell (1978), Wegner (1979), and Green (1977, 1979). Green’s north galactic pole survey of hot white dwarfs will present Strömgren colors for each of several hundred stars in his sample. At the time of this writing it is anticipated that Green’s blue survey will add 500 – 700 new white dwarfs with spectra and measured colors. Thus by the first half of 1980 the spectroscopic white dwarf sample will number between 1300 and 1500 stars.

Type
Colloquium Session IV
Copyright
Copyright © The University of Rochester 1979

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