A new scale of classical Cepheid color excesses

The uvbyß photometry of Feltz and McNamara (1980) for 41 classical Cepheids has been combined with theoretical colors derived by Lester, Gray, and Kurucz (1986) using theoretical gravities and temperatures from Cox (1980) to yield color excesses. The latter can be derived from each of m1, c1, and ß, and on average the three results agree well if solar metallicities and evolutionary masses are assumed; different metallicities or masses degrade the agreement considerably. Comparison with five other major Cepheid-excess studies shows satisfactory agreement with the present results being at the midpoint of the range among the other studies.