Galactic archaeology — the study of the structure and formation of the Milky Way — provides a snapshot of the kinematics, composition, and evolution of our galaxy, helping us understand the processes that take place in Milky Way-like galaxies at different stages. A key issue with this is our limited perspective of the Milky Way, making it extremely hard to study some regions such as the Galactic Bulge, Galactic Center, and spiral arms behind them.

In this project, I revisit “low extinction windows” in the Galactic Bulge previously studied by Thomas Brown (2009) via the WFC3 Galactic Bulge Treasury Program. I will compare the results of the program’s Hubble Space Telescope’s WFC3 data to newer data by cross matching it to databases such as Gaia’s EDR3. Additionally, we will use new stellar models such as Tim Morton’s isochrones (2015) and explore more recent studies of the Bulge if time permits. From this, I will create improved extinction maps to characterize the stellar populations of the Bulge. All of this will provide a deeper insight into the kinematics, composition, and evolution of both the Galactic Bulge and the Milky Way.