Description
We present results of an optical search conducted as part of the SH0ES project (Supernovae and H_0_ for the Equation of State of dark energy) for Cepheid variable stars using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 19 hosts of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and the maser-host galaxy NGC4258. The targets include nine newly imaged SN Ia hosts using a novel strategy based on a long-pass filter that minimizes the number of HST orbits required to detect and accurately determine Cepheid properties. We carried out a homogeneous reduction and analysis of all observations, including new universal variability searches in all SNIa hosts, which yielded a total of 2200 variables with well-defined selection criteria, the largest such sample identified outside the Local Group. These objects are used in a companion paper to determine the local value of H_0_ with a total uncertainty of 2.4%.
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