James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

Harvard ADS: Faint white dwarf flux standards: data and models

Paper abstract: Fainter standard stars are essential for the calibration of larger telescopes. This work adds to the CALSPEC (calibration spectra) database 19 faint white dwarfs (WDs) with all-sky coverage and V magnitudes between 16.5 and 18.7. Included for these stars is new UV (ultraviolet) HST (Hubble Space Telescope) STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrometer) spectrophotometry between 1150 and 3000~Å with a resolution of ~500. Pure hydrogen WD models are fit to these UV spectra and to six-band HST/WFC3 (Wide Field Camera 3) photometry at 0.28 to 1.6~\micron\ to construct predicted model SEDs (spectral energy distributions) covering wavelengths from 900~Å to the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) limit of 30~\micron\ using well-established CALSPEC procedures for producing flux standards with the goal of 1\% accuracy.