Galactic reddening maps

Of particular concern are systematic errors which vary slowly as a function of position on the sky, as these would induce spurious bulk flow. We have compared the reddenings of Burstein & Heiles (BH, 1982, Cat. <J/AJ/87/1165>) and those of Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis (1998ApJ...500..525S, SFD) to independent estimates of the reddening, for Galactic latitudes |b|>10{deg}.

Our primary source of Galactic reddening estimates comes from comparing the difference between the observed B-V colors of early-type galaxies, and the predicted B-V color determined from the B-V-Mg_2_ relation. We have fitted a dipole to the residuals in order to look for large-scale systematic deviations. There is marginal evidence for a dipolar residual in the comparison between the SFD maps and the observed early-type galaxy reddenings.