Mapping the Asymmetric Thick Disk: II Distance, Size and Mass of the
  Hercules Thick Disk Cloud
  The Hercules Thick Disk Cloud (Larsen et al. 2008) was initially discovered
as an excess in the number of faint blue stars between quadrants 1 and 4 of the
Galaxy. The origin of the Cloud could be an interaction with the disk bar, a
triaxial thick disk or a merger remnant or stream. To better map the spatial
extent of the Cloud along the line of sight, we have obtained multi-color UBVR
photometry for 1.2 million stars in 63 fields approximately 1 square degree
each. Our analysis of the fields beyond the apparent boundaries of the excess
have already ruled out a triaxial thick disk as a likely explanation (Larsen,
Humphreys and Cabanela 2010) In this paper we present our results for the star
counts over all of our fields, determine the spatial extent of the over density
across and along the line of sight, and estimate the size and mass of the
Cloud. Using photometric parallaxes, the stars responsible for the excess are
between 1 and 6 kiloparsecs from the Sun, 0.5 -- 4 kpc above the Galactic
plane, and extends approximately 3-4 kiloparsecs across our line of sight. It
is thus a major substructure in the Galaxy. The distribution of the excess
along our sight lines corresponds with the density contours of the bar in the
Disk, and its most distant stars are directly over the bar. We also see through
the Cloud to its far side. Over the entire 500 square degrees of sky containing
the Cloud, we estimate more than 5.6 million stars and 1.9 million solar masses
of material. If the over density is associated with the bar, it would exceed
1.4 billion stars and more than than 50 million solar masses. Finally, we argue
that the Hercules-Aquila Cloud (Belokurov et al. 2007) is actually the Hercules
Thick Disk Cloud.
