We have detected, for the first time, Cepheid variables in the Sculptor Group SB(s)m galaxy NGC 55. From wide-field images obtained in the optical V and I bands during 77 nights in 2002-2003, we have found 143 Cepheids with periods ranging from 5.6 to 175.9 days; 133 of these objects have periods longer than 10 days, making NGC 55 to date the galaxy with the largest known number of long-period Cepheids in the Sculptor Group.
We have conducted an extensive wide-field imaging survey for Cepheid variables in the Local Group irregular galaxy WLM. From data obtained on 101 nights, we have discovered 60 Cepheids, which include 14 of the 15 Cepheid variables previously detected by Sandage and Carlson. Our Cepheid survey in WLM should be practically complete down to a period of 3-days. Importantly, we have found for the first time a long-period Cepheid (P=54.2-days) in this galaxy, alleviating the problem that WLM with its many blue, massive stars does not contain Cepheids with periods longer than about 10-days.
We have obtained multiobject spectroscopy of luminous blue supergiants in NGC 3109, a galaxy at the periphery of the Local Group at ~1.3Mpc. We present a detailed catalog including finding charts, V and I magnitudes, spectral classifications, and stellar radial velocities. The radial velocities are seen to trace the rotation curves obtained from studies of the H I gas. From quantitative analysis of eight B-type supergiants we find a mean oxygen abundance of 12+log(O/H)=7.76+/-0.07 (1{sigma} systematic uncertainty), with a median result of 7.8. Given its distance, we highlight NGC 3109 as the ideal example of a low-metallicity, dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxy for observations with the next generation of ground-based extremely large telescopes.
We have obtained deep images in the near-infrared J and K filters of four fields in the Sculptor group spiral galaxy NGC 55 with the ESO VLT and ISAAC camera. For 40 long-period Cepheid variables in these fields, which were recently discovered by Pietrzyski et al., we have determined mean J and K magnitudes from observations at two epochs, and derived distance moduli from the observed period-luminosity (PL) relations in these bands.
We have obtained mosaic images of NGC 6822 in the V and I bands on 77 nights. From these data, we have conducted an extensive search for Cepheid variables over the entire field of the galaxy, and we have found 116 such variables with periods ranging from 1.7 to 124 days. We used the long-period (>5.6 days) Cepheids to establish the period-luminosity (PL) relations in V, I, and in the reddening-independent Wesenheit index, which are all very tightly defined.
We have measured near-infrared magnitudes in the J and K bands for 56 Cepheid variables in the Local Group galaxy NGC 6822 with well-determined periods and optical light curves in the V and I bands. Using the template light-curve approach of Soszyski and coworkers (2005PASP..117..823S), accurate mean magnitudes were obtained from these data, which allowed us to determine with unprecedented accuracy the distance to NGC 6822 from a multi-wavelength period-luminosity solution in the VIJK bands.
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.
We present VI data, derive improved periods and mean magnitudes for the variables, and construct period-luminosity relations in the V, I, and the reddening-independent V-I Wesenheit bands using 58 Cepheid variables with periods between 11 and 90 days.
New CCD photometric observations of the eclipsing system AR Boo were obtained from 2006 February to 2008 April. The star's photometric properties are derived from detailed studies of the period variability and of all available light curves.
We present a second update of the Arcetri Catalog of water masers (Comoretto et al., 1990A&AS...84..179C; Brand et al., 1994, Cat. <J/A+AS/103/541>). The present study reports the results of the observations carried out with the Medicina 32-m radiotelescope from January 1993 to April 2000 on a sample of 300 sources. This compilation consists of newly discovered maser sources that did not appear in the previous Arcetri Catalogs and is made of: a) detections from the literature, and b) unpublished detections obtained with the Medicina antenna. Overall, 83 out of 300 sources were detected. The detection rate is low (28%) and we attribute this result to the inclusion in our survey of a rather large number of spurious maser detections that have appeared in one particular paper. The observational parameters are reported in tabular form for all the 300 sources and the spectra of the detected masers are presented. We discuss the global properties of the complete Arcetri Catalog based on Comoretto et al. (1990A&AS...84..179C), Brand et al. (1994, Cat. <J/A+AS/103/541>) and the present observations, which now contains 1013 galactic water maser sources. Of these, 937 have an IRAS counterpart within 1 arcmin from the nominal position of the maser. We establish a classification scheme based on the IRAS flux densities which allows to distinguish between water masers associated with star forming regions and late-type stars. The Arcetri Catalog represents a useful data base for systematic studies of galactic water maser sources.
