Description:
Extinciton maps made from 2MASS and NICER (Near Infrared Extinction-method Revisited). This map is made from the final 2MASS data release and cover all of Ophiuchus. The data values are magnitudes of visual extinction (Av). At the center of the cloud (high extinction) there is a small hole, and a few other defects are present, including a spot due to Antares. Consult the error map and stellar density map to identify these regions. Versions in galactic and equatorial coordinates are provided. The equatorial versions look less smooth, since they were regridded without re-orientating pixels. FITS headers for all these files occasionally refuse to play nicely with certain programs, but all display correctly in something like DS9.

Contact Person: 
Jonathan Foster, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Telescope:
2MASS

Status:
Finished

Sampling:
N/A

Areal Coverage:
9 by 8 degrees

Map Center (Galactic):
l = 355.54 
b = +15.55

Map Center (J2000):
RA = 16:37:43 
Dec = -23:28:47

Downloads:
OphA_Extn2MASS_F_Gal.fits Map in Galactic Coordinates (436 K)
OphA_Extn2MASS_F_Err-Gal.fits Error map in Galactic Coordinates (436 K)
OphA_Extn2MASS_F_Den-Gal.fits Stellar density map in Galactic Coordinates (436 K)
OphA_Extn2MASS_F_Eq.fits Map in Equatorial Coordinates (984 K)
OphA_Extn2MASS_F_Err-Eq.fits Error map in Equatorial Coordinates (984 K)
OphA_Extn2MASS_F_Den-Eq.fits Stellar density map in Equatorial Coordinates (984 K)

Comments on Resolution:
The map is smoothed with a gaussian filter with FWHM = 3 arcminutes or two pixels, so each pixel is 1.5 arcminutes.

Publications:
None yet