English

Secondary standards in the UKIRT faint standard fields

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2025-11-06 v1

Abstract

We present precise J- and K-band photometric measurements for 128 near-infrared secondary standard stars, located in the 19 UKIRT/MKO primary faint standard fields. The data were collected over more than 50 nights, covering a decade of observations between 2008 and 2018 at the ESO La Silla Observatory, using the New Technology Telescope (NTT) equipped with the SOFI NIR camera. Presented magnitudes are calibrated onto the MKO photometric system. The J- and K-band magnitudes range from 10 to 15.8 mag, with median values of J~\tilde{J} = 13.5 and K~\tilde{K} = 13 mag. The selection process ensured high photometric quality, with a precision better than 0.01 mag for all stars. The catalog excludes stars with close neighbors, high proper motion, or variable stars. Using these fields for standardization can improve the precision and accuracy of photometric calibrations without increasing the observational time cost.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.02945,
  title  = {Secondary standards in the UKIRT faint standard fields},
  author = {Marek Górski and Grzegorz Pietrzyński and Paulina Karczmarek and Gergely Hajdu and Mirosław Kicia and Mikołaj Kałuszyński and Joseph R. Eimer and Stephen A. Smee and Bartłomiej Zgirski and Piotr Wielgórski and Weronika Narloch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.02945},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (ApJS)