L′ and M′ standard stars for the Mauna Kea Observatories Near-Infrared system

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 345; no. 1; pp. 144 - 152
• Main Authors: Leggett, S. K., Hawarden, T. G., Currie, M. J., Adamson, A. J., Carroll, T. C., Kerr, T. H., Kuhn, O. P., Seigar, M. S., Varricatt, W. P., Wold, T.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 11-10-2003
• Subjects: infrared: stars; methods: data analysis; techniques: photometric
• ISSN: 0035-8711; 1365-2966
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06943.x

We present L′ and M′ photometry, obtained at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) using the Mauna Kea Observatories Near-Infrared (MKO-NIR) filter set, for 46 and 31 standard stars, respectively. The L′ standards include 25 from the in-house ‘UKIRT Bright Standards’ with magnitudes deriving from Elias et al. and observations at the Infrared Telescope Facility in the early 1980s, and 21 fainter stars. The M′ magnitudes derive from the results of Sinton and Tittemore. We estimate the average external error to be 0.015 mag for the bright L′ standards and 0.025 mag for the fainter L′ standards, and 0.026 mag for the M′ standards. The new results provide a network of homogeneously observed standards, and establish reference stars for the MKO system, in these bands. They also extend the available standards to magnitudes which should be faint enough to be accessible for observations with modern detectors on large and very large telescopes.