COLOR EXCESSES FOR CLASSICAL CEPHEIDS FROM BV PHOTOMETRY

Starting from Code's long-standing discovery that classical Cepheids a ll have nearly the same spectral type at maximum light, it is found th at the equation E(B-V) = {(B-V) at max light} - 0.387 + 0.302V(ampl) - 0.318 log P provides the color excess of a classical Cepheid with a p recision comparable to other methods. This should enable the many fiel d Cepheids having only Johnson (U)BV photometry to be used in Galactic structure and similar studies. A few cautions in the use of this meth od are pointed out.