REDDENING ESTIMATION FOR HALO RED GIANTS USING UVBY PHOTOMETRY

Updated uvby observations for a larger sample of metal-deficient red g iants arc presented and combined with a select sample of data from the literature transformed to a common system. Using the reddening maps o f Burstein & Heiles [AJ, 87, 1165 (1982)], new absolute magnitudes, di stances, metallicities, and reddenings are derived for each star. The metallicities are determined with a revised calibration of the m1, (b - y) diagram based upon comparison to a compilation of recent spectros copic abundances transformed to a common system. The photometric abund ances agree very well with the spectroscopic; the dispersion among the residuals for 58 giants is +/- 0.16 dex. The dereddened indices are u sed to show that for red giants with [Fe/H]< - 1.5, there is a well-de fined relation in the c0, (b - y)0 diagram which exhibits only a weak dependence upon metallicity. Use of the standard relations allows one to obtain reddening estimates for normal halo field giants and globula r clusters in the appropriate metallicity range.