Open Astronomy (Dec 2003)
Correction of UBV Photometry for Emission Lines
Abstract
We investigate the effect on U,B,V magnitudes of the removal of emission lines from the spectra of some symbiotic stars and novae during their nebular phases. We approach this problem by the precise reconstruction of the composite UV/optical continuum and the line spectrum. The corrections ΔU, ΔB and ΔV are determined from the ratio of fluxes with and without emission lines. We demonstrate the effect for symbiotic nova V1016 Cyg during its nebular phase. We find that about 68%, 78% and 66% of the observed flux in the U, B and V filters is radiated in the emission lines. The effect should be taken into account before using the observed color indices of emission-line objects for diagnosis of their radiation in the continuum.
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