Re: USNO A2.0 "R"

[Michael Koppelman <lolife@bitstream.net>]

Thanks, everyone, for the info. I did read the USNO A2.0 readme 
but apparently not good enough. It sounds like I should not 
really use those R magnitudes at all, based on Brian's quote 
from the readme of "The photometric calibration of USNO-A1.0 is 
about as poor as one can
have and still claim that the magnitudes mean something." 2.0 
claims to be an improvement, but many stressed that it is not a 
photometric catalog. That was news to me.

So it turns out there are no good R or I reference catalogs out 
there. It makes me wonder if TASS could possibly fill that 
niche. Brian's email to Tom said as much: can we program these 
things to take standard stars each night and maybe go the whole 
route of calculating extinction and the transformation 
coefficients each night? Or at least just figure out the 
extinction and zero point each night? Is it probable or possible 
that TASS could create a catalog of high-quality V and Ic 
transformed photometry? That would be really cool.

Also, is there anyway to interpolate R magnitudes from the TASS 
data using the V and I magnitudes?

I'm all about R ever since I got me new filter. ;)

Cheers,
Michael K.