B (2). Local Structure: Work in High Latitudes

Extract

The potential possibilities of research in Kapteyn's Selected Areas at intermediate and high latitudes, where magnitudes and proper motions are already available, could be fully exploited if a more accurate spectral and luminosity classification would become available, especially for the later type stars. The purpose of work on faint stars in these latitudes is manifold. At the highest latitudes the improved data can serve for a new determination of the density distribution and of the force perpendicular to the galactic plane as a function of the distance z to the plane, K(z). The limiting magnitude may be set here at m = 13.0 (photographic). At intermediate latitudes one would hope to find the correlation between the density at some distance above the galactic plane with the density in the plane. Here the limit should be set at 13.5 or 14.0, so that G and K giants can be reached up to distances of 2 to 3 kparsecs from the Sun.