Dovi Poznanski, J. Xavier Prochaska, Joshua S. Bloom
Dust extinction and reddening are ubiquitous in astronomical observations and are often a major source of systematic uncertainty. We present here a study of the correlation between extinction in the Milky Way and the equivalent width of the NaI D absorption doublet. Our sample includes more than 100 high resolution spectra from the KECK telescopes and nearly a million low resolution spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We measure the correlation to unprecedented precision, constrain its shape, and derive an empirical relation between these quantities with a dispersion of order 0.15 magnitude in E(B-V). From the shape of the curve of growth we further show that a typical sight line through the Galaxy crosses about three dust clouds. We provide a brief guide on how to best estimate extinction to extragalactic sources such as supernovae, using the NaI D absorption feature, under a variety of circumstances.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6107
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