The stellar initial mass function (IMF) is an essential input for many astrophysical studies but only in a few cases has it been determined over the whole cluster mass range, limiting the conclusions about its nature. The 25 Orionis group (25 Ori) is an excellent laboratory for investigating the IMF across the entire mass range of the population, from planetary-mass objects to intermediate/high-mass stars. We combine new deep optical photometry with optical and near-infrared data from the literature to select 1687 member candidates covering a 1.1{deg} radius area in 25 Ori. With this sample we derived the 25 Ori system IMF from 0.012 to 13.1M_{sun}_. This system IMF is well described by a two-segment power law with {GAMMA}=-0.74+/-0.04 for m<0.4M_{sun}_ and {GAMMA}=1.50+/-0.11 for m>=0.4M_{sun}_. It is also well described over the whole mass range by a tapered power-law function with {GAMMA}=1.10+/-0.09, mp=0.31+/-0.03 and {beta}=2.11+/-0.09. The best lognormal representation of the system IMF has mc=0.31+/-0.04 and {sigma}=0.46+/-0.05 for m<1M_{sun}_. This system IMF does not present significant variations with the radii. We compared the resultant system IMF as well as the brown dwarf/star ratio of 0.16+/-0.03 that we estimated for 25 Ori with that of other stellar regions with diverse conditions and found no significant discrepancies. These results support the idea that general star-formation mechanisms are probably not strongly dependent on environmental conditions. We found that the substellar and stellar objects in 25 Ori do not have any preferential spatial distributions and confirmed that 25 Ori is a gravitationally unbound stellar association.
Multiband CCD photometric observations of SZ Her were obtained between 2008 February and May. The light curve was completely covered and indicated a significant temperature difference between both components. The light-curve synthesis presented in this paper indicates that the eclipsing binary is a classical Algol-type system with parameters of q=0.472, i=87.57{deg}, and {Delta}(T_1_-T_2_)=2381K; the primary component fills approximately 77% of its limiting lobe and is slightly larger than the lobe-filling secondary component. More than 1100 times of minimum light spanning more than a century were used to study an orbital behavior of the binary system. It was found that the orbital period of SZ Her varied due to a combination of two periodic variations with cycle lengths of P_3_=85.8yr and P_4_=42.5yr and semi-amplitudes of K_3_=0.013days and K_4_=0.007days, respectively. The most reasonable explanation for these variations is a pair of light-time effects driven by the possible existence of two M-type companions with minimum masses of M_3_=0.22M_{sun}_ and M_4_=0.19M_{sun}_ that are located close to the 2:1 mean motion resonance. If two additional bodies exist, then the overall dynamics of the multiple system may provide a significant clue to the formation and evolution of the eclipsing pair.
In the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF, Cat. <II/258>) an abundance of galaxies is seen with a knot at one end plus an extended tail, resembling a tadpole. These "tadpole galaxies" appear dynamically unrelaxed - presumably in an early merging stage - where tidal interactions likely created the distorted knot-plus-tail morphology. Here we systematically select tadpole galaxies from the HUDF and study their properties as a function of their photometric redshifts.
The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) project has collected more than a billion photometric measurements since 2005 January. These sky survey data-covering timescales from a fraction of a second to a few hundred days-are a useful source to study stellar variability. A total of 167 star fields, mostly along the ecliptic plane, have been selected for photometric monitoring with the TAOS telescopes. This paper presents our initial analysis of a search for periodic variable stars from the time-series TAOS data on one particular TAOS field, No. 151 (RA=17:30:6.7, DE=27:27:30, J2000), which had been observed over 47 epochs in 2005. A total of 81 candidate variables are identified in the 3deg^2^ field, with magnitudes in the range 8<R<16. On the basis of the periodicity and shape of the light curves, 29 variables, 15 of which were previously unknown, are classified as RR Lyrae, Cepheid, delta Scuti, SX Phonencis, semi-regular, and eclipsing binaries.
TAROT (Telescope a Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires) is a robotic observatory designed to observe very early optical transients of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). As GRBs do not often occur, we use TAROT for various other celestial targets spread over the sky. For every field observed by TAROT, we computed the magnitudes of every star. From this work, we found 1175 new variable stars brighter than 17mag. We selected the best variable star candidates and compiled them in the TSVSC1 (TAROT Suspected Variable Star Catalog, ver. 1), which also contains Fourier-series coefficients that fit the light curves.
The Amateur Sky Survey (TASS) is a loose confederation of amateur and professional astronomers. We describe the design and construction of our Mark III system, a set of wide-field drift-scan CCD cameras which monitor the celestial equator down to 13th magnitude in several passbands. We explain the methods by which images are gathered, processed, and reduced into lists of stellar positions and magnitudes. Over the period 1996 October to 1998 November, we compiled a large database of photometric measurements. One of our results is the tenxcat catalog, which contains measurements on the standard Johnson-Cousins system for 367,241 stars; it contains links to the light curves of these stars as well.
TASS Mark IV patches photometric catalog, version 2
Short Name:
II/271A
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
The Amateur Sky Survey (TASS) is a loose confederation of amateur and professional astronomers. We describe the design and construction of our Mark IV systems, a set of wide-field telescopes with CCD cameras which take simultaneous images in the V and I passbands. We explain our observational procedures and the pipeline which processes and reduces the images into lists of stellar positions and magnitudes. We have compiled a large database of measurements for stars in the northern celestial hemisphere with V-band magnitudes in the range 7<V<13. This paper describes data taken over the four-year period starting November, 2001. One of our results is a catalog of repeated measurements on the Johnson-Cousins system for over 4.3 million stars. This Version 2 of the catalog corrects a systematic error in photometry as function of Declination.
Normal field stars located behind dense clouds are a valuable resource in interstellar astrophysics, as they provide continua in which to study phenomena such as gas-phase and solid-state absorption features, interstellar extinction, and polarization. This paper reports the results of a search for highly reddened stars behind the Taurus Dark Cloud complex. We use the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Point Source Catalog to survey a ~50deg^2^ area of the cloud to a limiting magnitude of Ks=10.0. Photometry in the 1.2-2.2um passbands from 2MASS is combined with photometry at longer infrared wavelengths (3.6-12um) from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite to provide effective discrimination between reddened field stars and young stellar objects (YSOs) embedded in the cloud. Our final catalog contains 248 confirmed or probable background field stars, together with estimates of their total visual extinctions, which span the range 2<A_V_<29mag. We also identify the 2MASS source J04292083+2742074 (IRAS 04262+2735) as a previously unrecognized candidate YSO, based on the presence of infrared emission greatly in excess of that predicted for a normal reddened photosphere at wavelengths >5um.
We present an analysis of K2 light curves (LCs) from Campaigns 4 and 13 for members of the young (~3Myr) Taurus association, in addition to an older (~30Myr) population of stars that is largely in the foreground of the Taurus molecular clouds. Out of 156 of the highest-confidence Taurus members, we find that 81% are periodic. Our sample of young foreground stars is biased and incomplete, but nearly all stars (37/38) are periodic. The overall distribution of rotation rates as a function of color (a proxy for mass) is similar to that found in other clusters: the slowest rotators are among the early M spectral types, with faster rotation toward both earlier FGK and later M types. The relationship between period and color/mass exhibited by older clusters such as the Pleiades is already in place by Taurus age. The foreground population has very few stars but is consistent with the USco and Pleiades period distributions. As found in other young clusters, stars with disks rotate on average slower, and few with disks are found rotating faster than ~2days. The overall amplitude of the LCs decreases with age, and higher-mass stars have generally lower amplitudes than lower-mass stars. Stars with disks have on average larger amplitudes than stars without disks, though the physical mechanisms driving the variability and the resulting LC morphologies are also different between these two classes.
We report on the properties of pre-main-sequence objects in the Taurus molecular clouds as observed in seven mid- and far-infrared bands with the Spitzer Space Telescope. There are 215 previously identified members of the Taurus star-forming region in our ~44deg^2^ map; these members exhibit a range of Spitzer colors that we take to define young stars still surrounded by circumstellar dust (noting that ~20% of the bona fide Taurus members exhibit no detectable dust excesses). We looked for new objects in the survey field with similar Spitzer properties, aided by extensive optical, X-ray, and ultraviolet imaging, and found 148 new candidate members of Taurus. We have obtained follow-up spectroscopy for about half the candidate sample, thus far confirming 34 new members, three probable new members, and 10 possible new members, an increase of 15%-20% in Taurus members. Of the objects for which we have spectroscopy, seven are now confirmed extragalactic objects, and one is a background Be star. The remaining 93 candidate objects await additional analysis and/or data to be confirmed or rejected as Taurus members. Most of the new members are Class II M stars and are located along the same cloud filaments as the previously identified Taurus members. Among non-members with Spitzer colors similar to young, dusty stars are evolved Be stars, planetary nebulae, carbon stars, galaxies, and active galactic nuclei.
