We present results of a multifilter survey of the whole Magellanic-type galaxy IC 1613. Narrowband CN and TiO filters are used to identify carbon stars among red giants. We have identified 195 carbon stars, extending up to 15' from the center of the galaxy. We present well-calibrated R and I magnitudes for all stars. The large field surveyed allows a reliable foreground estimate of M stars, leading to a C/M ratio of 0.64, when giants as early as M0 are counted. Analysis of the photometric properties of the C star population reveals a narrow M_I_ distribution with a mean M_I_ of -4.69mag, with a dispersion of +/-0.28. IC 1613 has, for its absolute magnitude, a normal number of C stars.
We present the latest results of our ongoing four-filter photometric survey of C stars in Local Group dwarf irregular galaxies. Observations of the two low-luminosity dwarf irregular galaxies, Pegasus and DDO 210, revealed 40 and three C stars, respectively, assuming that the reddening of Pegasus is negligible. No C stars were identified in Tucana. Our observations permit the estimation of the color-magnitude diagram contamination by foreground M dwarfs thus yielding reliable C/M ratios. Our R and I photometry of the C stars cannot be used to solve the extinction controversy toward Pegasus. The three C stars in DDO 210 are quite bright when compared with C star populations in other dwarf galaxies. A larger, fainter population in that galaxy seems improbable, however. The statistics of C stars currently on hand for dwarf galaxies show a well-defined trend with the absolute magnitude of dwarf galaxies.
Accurate positions and charts for 1707 carbon stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud identified on GRISM plates are presented. The catalog provides data on magnitudes, colors, and carbon-abundance measurements and can be used for selecting carbon stars with special characteristics.
We used the CFH12K wide field camera to survey the carbon star population of the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte system using the CN-TiO technique. 149 C stars are identified with a mean <I>=20.28, corresponding to <M_I_>=-4.65, a mean luminosity similar to what we found in other irregular galaxies. Star counts in and around the main body of WLM reveal that its stellar distribution is quite elliptical ({epsilon}=0.58) with major and minor axes of 26' and 11'. Comparison of the density profile of C stars and old red giants shows that their scale lengths differ by only 15% pointing to mixed populations. Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte is found to be unique among dwarf irregular galaxies by having essentially a handful of early-type AGB M stars thus leading to an extreme C/M ratio.
We present the results of a multi-site photometric campaign carried out in 2004-2008 for the Algol-type eclipsing binary system CT Her, the primary component of which shows delta Scuti-type oscillations. Our data consist of differential light curves collected in the filters B and V which have been analysed using the method of Wilson-Devinney (Phoebe). After identification of an adequate binary model and removal of the best-matching light curve solution, we performed a Fourier analysis of the residual B and V light curves to investigate the pulsational behaviour.
We investigate the massive star population of NGC 6822 with ground-based UBV photometry covering the whole of the galaxy and HST WFPC2 photometry with filters F255W, F336W, F439W, and F555W of two fields containing very rich and crowded OB associations. The four-band WFPC2 photometry is used to derive Teff and E(B-V). H-R diagrams are constructed for the OB associations included in our fields. These show that 10Myr old populations are present in OB 9 and OB 6, while more recent star formation have occurred in OB 8, OB 13, OB 15, and OB 7. Two particularly interesting H II regions, Hubble V and Hubble X, are included in our fields. The luminous massive stars that power these bright H II regions (H{alpha} luminosity several times that of the Orion nebula), could be resolved even in their dense cores thanks to the HST spatial resolution. Our data reveal very young (a few million years), apparently coeval populations, with several massive star candidates.
With the advent of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, time-domain astronomy will be faced with an unprecedented volume and rate of data. Real-time processing of variables and transients detected by such large-scale surveys is critical to identifying the more unusual events and allocating scarce follow-up resources efficiently. We develop an algorithm to identify these novel events within a given population of variable sources. We determine the distributions of magnitude changes (dm) over time intervals (dt) for a given passband f, p_f_^(dm|dt)^, and use these distributions to compute the likelihood of a test source being consistent with the population or being an outlier. We demonstrate our algorithm by applying it to the DECam multiband time-series data of more than 2000 variable stars identified by Saha+ (2019, J/ApJ/874/30) in the Galactic Bulge that are largely dominated by long-period variables and pulsating stars. Our algorithm discovers 18 outlier sources in the sample, including a microlensing event, a dwarf nova, and two chromospherically active RS CVn stars, as well as sources in the blue horizontal branch region of the color-magnitude diagram without any known counterparts. We compare the performance of our algorithm for novelty detection with the multivariate Kernel Density Estimator and Isolation Forest on the simulated PLAsTiCC data set. We find that our algorithm yields comparable results despite its simplicity. Our method provides an efficient way for flagging the most unusual events in a real-time alert-broker system.
We characterize the absolute magnitudes and colors of RR Lyrae stars in the globular cluster M5 in the ugriz filter system of the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). We provide empirical period-luminosity (P-L) relationships in all five bands based on 47 RR Lyrae stars of the type ab and 14 stars of the type c. The P-L relationships were found to be better constrained for the fundamental-mode RR Lyrae stars in the riz passbands, with dispersions of 0.03, 0.02 and 0.02mag, respectively. The dispersion of the color at minimum light was found to be small, supporting the use of this parameter as a means to obtain accurate interstellar extinctions along the line of sight up to the distance of the RR Lyrae star. We found a trend of color at minimum light with a pulsational period that, if taken into account, brings the dispersion in color at minimum light to 0.016 mag for the (r-i), (i-z), and (r-z) colors. These calibrations will be very useful for using RR Lyrae stars from DECam observations as both standard candles for distance determinations and color standards for reddening measurements.
Previous smaller-scale studies of the globular cluster system of NGC 4636, an elliptical galaxy in the southern part of the Virgo cluster, have revealed an unusually rich globular cluster system. We re-investigate the cluster system of NGC 4636 with wide-field Washington photometry.
We present results from Washington CT_1_ photometry for 11 star fields located in the western outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), which cover angular distances to its centre from 2{deg} up to 13{deg} (~2.2-13.8 kpc). The colour-magnitude diagrams, cleaned from the unavoidable Milky Way (MW) and background galaxy signatures, reveal that the most distant dominant main-sequence (MS) stellar populations from the SMC centre are located at an angular distance of ~5.7{deg} (6.1 kpc); no sign of farther clear SMC MS is visible other than the residuals from the MW/background field contamination. The derived ages and metallicities for the dominant stellar populations of the western SMC periphery show a constant metallicity level ([Fe/H]=-1.0 dex) and an approximately constant age value (~7-8 Gyr). Their age-metallicity relationship (AMR) do not clearly differ from the most comprehensive AMRs derived for almost the entire SMC main body. Finally, the range of ages of the dominant stellar populations in the western SMC periphery confirms that the major stellar mass formation activity at the very early galaxy epoch peaked ~7-8 Gyr ago.
