UBOKO/Ciardi and Howell

Using multiwavelength data to characterize Ultra Blue Objects for Kepler Observing (UBOKO). Characterizing the identities of these sources will facilitate further study and will be used to propose future observations with the Kepler Space Telescope.

We propose to generate Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) of objects in the Kepler field that have been identified to be very blue; the SEDs will be used to characterize and classify the objects. Using Ultraviolet, Blue and Visual magnitudes (UBV) from a ground based survey of the Kepler Field by Howell and Everett, we have identified ultra-blue objects from a color-color plot of U-B vs. B-V objects. Our research will focus on the ~200 of the brightest objects out of the roughly 4000 ultra-blue objects contained in the UBV survey.

By collecting ultraviolet, optical and infra-red photometric data using astronomical archives, including GALEX, MAST, IRSA and NExScI, we will make SEDs of each object and compare them to known SEDs of White Dwarfs (WDs), Planetary Nebula Nuclei (PNNs), Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), Cataclysmic Variables (CVs), and X-ray Binaries (XBs). Characterizing the identities of these sources in the Kepler field will facilitate further study and will be used to propose observations with the Kepler space telescope.