Atmospheric extinction in the /U-B/ color index Various methods for obtaining the atmospheric extinction in the (U-B)color index taking into account the dependence of extinction coefficienton the intrinsic color index of the star are examined. Numericalintegrations are performed to determine synthetic color indices for 32stars of spectral classes O9 to M0 and luminosity classes I, III and Vthrough 0, 1 and 2 air masses, resulting in three (u-b) color indicesfor each star. Photometric reduction of the color indices to the (U-B)color index was then performed by the classical method, by the methodproposed by Gutierrez-Moreno et al. (1966) and various modifications ofit, and by the method proposed by Moffat and Vogt (1977). Comparisonwith observations of 71 stars in the standard region E5, nine extinctionstandard stars and 25 Johnson standard stars in the UBV reveals that thereduction of (U-B) by the classical method gives internal errors betweentwo and three times larger than those obtained for (B-V) and V, whilethe methods of Gutierrez-Moreno et al. and Moffat and Vogt providegreatly improved accuracy.
