Photometric and spectroscopic analysis of high Galactic latitude molecular clouds. I - Distances and extinctions of stars toward 25 selected regions

Abstract

New photoelectric photometry in the UBV, uvby, and Hβ systems is presented for 320 stars at high Galactic latitudes, selected for their proximity to the densest portions of a variety of high Galactic latitude atomic and molecular clouds. Low-resolution digital spectra are used to classify 115 of the stars, using both stellar line strengths and statistical tests against a library of standard stars of all spectral types. Several new techniques are developed for automatic digital spectral classification, and for dereddening Stromgren uvbyβ and Johnson UBV, Hβ photometry