ON THE HOMOGENEITY OF THE EXTINCTION LAW IN OUR GALAXY

Abstract

We analyze the extinction law towards several B1V stars-members of our Galaxy, searching for possible discrepancies from the galactic average extinction curve. Our photometric data allow to build extinction curves in a very broad range: from extreme UV till infrared. Two-colour diagrams, based on the collected photometric data from the ANS UV satellite, published UBV measurements and on the infrared 2MASS data of the selected stars, are constructed. Slopes of the fitted straight lines are used to build the average extinction curve and to search for discrepant objects. The selected stars have also been observed spectroscopically from the Terskol and ESO Observatories; these spectra allow to check their Sp/L's. The spectra of only about 30% of the initially selected objects resemble closely that of HD144470, considered as the standard of B1 V type. Other spectra either show some emission features or belong clearly to another spectral types. They are not used to build the extinction curve. Two-colour diagrams, constructed for the selected B1 V stars, showing no emission stellar features, prove that the interstellar extinction law is homogeneous in the Galaxy. Both the shape of the curve and the total-to-selective extinction ratio do not differ from the galactic average and the canonical value(3.1) respectively. The circumstellar emissions usually cause some discrepancies from the average interstellar extinction law; the discrepancies observed in the extraterrestrial ultraviolet, usually follow some misclassifications.