Calculated atmospheric color refraction and observed stellar positions

Abstract

AbstractAstrometric observations at different zenith distances have been performed in Dresden in an area centered atNGC 6791 where there are some stars with reliable color information (widely dispersed spectral types in the MK systemand color indices BT – VT) as well as with accurate positions from Tycho‐2 catalog. The results are used to estimate how significant improvements in stellar positions may be when accurate corrections for color refraction are taken into account. We have treated two cases for refraction calculations: (1) a photometric case for color indices and (2) a spectral case for spectral types and luminosity classes. To calculate refraction we use Stone's modified computer code (Malyuto & Meinel 2000). To treat the photometric case we have calculated the synthetic color indices for the spectral energy distributions of Sviderskiene (1988). The positional improvements due to including color refraction corrections are significant and slightly larger in the spectral case. An improvement of about 15% is reached at a zenith distance of 65°. Our basic conclusion is that color refraction should be taken into account for obtaining accurate stellar positions from ground based observations at larger zenith distances. Reliable refraction corrections may be calculated from spectral and/or photometric data.