Solar Space Density of the Red Clump Stars and the Scale-length of the Thin Disc

We estimated the scale-length of the thin disc with the J and W1 magnitudes of the most probable Red Clump (RC) stars in the Galactic plane, $-0overset{^circ}.5 leq b leq +0overset{^circ}.5$, in 19 equal sized fields with consecutive Galactic longitudes which cover the interval $90^circ leq l leq 270^circ$. Our results are constrained with respect to the solar space density ($D^*=5.95$), which indicates that the radial variation of the density is lower for higher Galactocentric distances. The scale-length of the thin disc is 2 kpc for the fields in the Galactic anticentre direction or close to this direction, while it decreases continuously in the second and third quadrants reaching to a lower limit of $h$ = 1.6 kpc at the Galactic longitudes $l$ = 90$^circ$ and $l$ = 270$^circ$. The distribution of the scale-length in 19 fields is consistent with the predictions from the Galaxia model and its variation with longitude is probably due to the inhomogeneity structure of the disc caused by the accreted material or other features such as warp and flare.

Transformations between 2MASS, SDSS and BVRI photometric systems: bridging the near infrared and optical

We present colour transformations for the conversion of the {em 2MASS} photometric system to the Johnson-Cousins $UBVRI$ system and further into the {em SDSS} $ugriz$ system. We have taken {em SDSS} $gri$ magnitudes of stars measured with the 2.5-m telescope from $SDSS$ Data Release 5 (DR5), and $BVRI$ and $JHK_{s}$ magnitudes from Stetsons catalogue and citet{Cu03}, respectively. We matched thousands of stars in the three photometric systems by their coordinates and obtained a homogeneous sample of 825 stars by the following constraints, which are not used in previous transformations: 1) the data are de-reddened, 2) giants are omitted, and 3) the sample stars selected are of the highest quality. We give metallicity, population type, and transformations dependent on two colours. The transformations provide absolute magnitude and distance determinations which can be used in space density evaluations at short distances where some or all of the {em SDSS} $ugriz$ magnitudes are saturated. The combination of these densities with those evaluated at larger distances using {em SDSS} $ugriz$ photometry will supply accurate Galactic model parameters, particularly the local space densities for each population.