A catalog of background stars reddened by dust in the Taurus Dark Clouds

Normal field stars located behind dense clouds are a valuable resource in interstellar astrophysics, as they provide continua in which to study phenomena such as gas-phase and solid-state absorption features, interstellar extinction, and polarization. This paper reports the results of a search for highly reddened stars behind the Taurus Dark Cloud complex. We use the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Point Source Catalog to survey a similar to 50 deg(2) area of the cloud to a limiting magnitude of K-s = 10.0. Photometry in the 1.2-2.2 mu m passbands from 2MASS is combined with photometry at longer infrared wavelengths (3.6-12 mu m) from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite to provide effective discrimination between reddened field stars and young stellar objects (YSOs) embedded in the cloud. Our final catalog contains 248 confirmed or probable background field stars, together with estimates of their total visual extinctions, which span the range 2 < A(V) < 29 mag. We also identify the 2MASS source J04292083+2742074 (IRAS 04262+2735) as a previously unrecognized candidate YSO, based on the presence of infrared emission greatly in excess of that predicted for a normal reddened photosphere at wavelengths > 5 mu m.