The Binary Catalog
The cloud distance catalog is available for download here:
The catalog has the following fields:
- name
- Name of the region of sky in which this line of sight was chosen
- l
- Galactic latitude (degrees)
- b
- Galactic longitude (degrees)
- dist_lit
- Previous literature distance estimate; see paper for sources
- medebv
- Median Planck E(B-V) toward stars used on this line of sight
- m16
- 16th percentile of distance modulus
- m50
- 50th percentile of distance modulus
- m84
- 84th percentile of distance modulus
- n16
- 16th percentile of normalization factor
- n50
- 50th percentile of normalization factor
- n84
- 84th percentile of normalization factor
- f16
- 16th percentile of nearby reddening screen
- f50
- 50th percentile of nearby reddening screen
- f84
- 84th percentile of nearby reddening screen
- fittype
- whether a small (1) or large (2) beam was adopted for the fit
- chain
- the MCMC chain (n_sample x n_par, n_par = [distance modulus, normalization, nearby reddening])
- lnprob
- log likelihoods in the MCMC chain
- nstar_tot
- the number of stars used
The most reliable parameters are the cloud distances. A variety of systematics (e.g. R_V variation, incorrect reddening vectors, dust template errors) can influence the total reddenings we measure, and therefore the foreground reddening and normalization. However, the distances we obtain are remarkably robust to these effects. See the paper for details.