A New Method for Determining the Shape of the Faint End of the Luminosity Function

A new observational method for determining the space density of very low luminosity stars is outlined. The essence of the method is to use a dark cloud of known distance to cut off the light of stars beyond that distance, providing a well defined volume of space in which all stars with M_B ≤ B_l - DM will be detected. B_l is the limiting magnitude of the plate and DM is the distance modulus of the cloud.