A list of highly reddened stars likely to be distant luminous stars

A list of highly reddened stars found in a photographic-infrared objective prism survey is presented. Many of these stars appear to have (R-I) color indices well in excess of 4-5 mag, yet their spectra do not exhibit molecular absorption bands on the spectral plates, so any intrinsic contribution to the redness should be small. Nor do most of the stars occur in the IRAS Point Source Catalog, so the reddening is unlikely to be circumstellar. It is inferred that they are reddened by interstellar absorption, hence they are generally at great distances and must be quite luminous in order to be detected at all