Extinction Map of the Galactic center: OGLE-II Galactic bulge fields

We present the reddening (E(V-I)) and Extinction maps in V-band (A_V) and I-band (A_I) for 48 Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment II (OGLE-II) Galactic bulge (GB) fields, covering a range of $-11^circ <l< 11^circ$, with the total area close to 11 square degrees. These measurements are based on two-band photometry of Red Clump Giant (RCG) stars in OGLE-II VI maps of GB. We confirm the anomalous value of the ratio of total to selective extinction $R_{VI} = A_V / E(V-I) = 1.9 sim 2.1$, depending on the line of sight, as measured by Udalski (2003). By using the average value of $R_{VI}=1.964$ with the standard deviation sdev=0.085, we measured E(V-I), A_V and A_I, and we obtained extinction and reddening maps with a high spatial resolution of $ 26.7sim 106.8$, depending on the stellar density of each field. We assumed that average, reddening corrected colours of red clump giants are the same in every field. The maps cover the range 0.42<E(V-I)<3.5, 0.83<A_V<6.9 and 0.41<A_I<3.4 mag respectively. The zero points of these maps are calibrated by using V-K colours of 20 RR Lyrae ab variables (RRab) in Baades window. The apparent reddening corrected I-band magnitudes of the RCGs change by +0.4 mag while the Galactic coordinate l varies from $+5^{circ}$ to $-5^{circ}$, indicating that these stars are in the Galactic Bar. The reddening corrected colour of RRab and RCGs in GB are consistent with colours of local stars, while in the past these colours were claimed to be different.