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Description
We have conducted a survey for Cepheid variables in the Sculptor group spiral NGC 300. Based on observations obtained with the Wide-Field Camera at the 2.2m ESO/MPI telescope at the La Silla observatory in Chile during 29 nights spread over a 5.3 month interval. The telescope was equipped with the ESO mosaic Wide-Field Camera (WFI) consisting of eight 2048x4098 pixel arrays. The CCDs were separated by gaps of 23.8" and 14.3" in right ascension and declination, respectively. The total field of view was about 34'x33' with a scale of 0.238"/pixel. 117 Cepheids and 12 Cepheid candidates were found, which cover the period range from 115 to 5.4 days. We present a catalog that provides equatorial coordinates, period, time of maximum brightness, and intensity mean B and V magnitudes for each variable, and we show phased B and V light curves for all the Cepheids found. We also present the individual B and V observations for each Cepheid in our catalog. During our search we rediscovered all 18 previously known Cepheids and confirmed the Cepheid nature of three Cepheid candidates from the previous photographic survey of Graham (1984AJ.....89.1332G). Star V4 in Graham's list (1984AJ.....89.1332G), classified by him as an eclipsing binary, turns out to be another Cepheid. We find very good agreement between our photometry and that obtained by Freedman et al. (1992ApJ...396...80F) from ground-based CCD data for common stars. Using the earlier data together with our new data, we were able to significantly improve the periods for 15 Cepheids in our sample.
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