- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/872/199
- Title:
- Candidate spectrophotometric standard DA WDs
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/872/199
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present precise photometry and spectroscopy for 23 candidate spectrophotometric standard white dwarfs. The selected stars are distributed in the Northern hemisphere and around the celestial equator, and are all fainter than r~16.5mag. This network of stars, when established as standards and together with the three Hubble Space Telescope primary CALSPEC white dwarfs, will provide a set of spectrophotometric standards to directly calibrate data products to better than 1%. In future deep photometric surveys and facilities, these new faint standard white dwarfs will have enough signal-to-noise ratio to be measured accurately while still avoiding saturation. They will also fall within the dynamic range of large telescopes and their instruments for the foreseeable future. This paper discusses the provenance of the observational data for our candidate standard stars.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/869/82
- Title:
- Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program: RR Lyrae NIR obs.
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/869/82
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present photometry of 30 Galactic RR Lyrae variables taken with HST WFC3/IR for the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. These measurements form the base of the distance-ladder measurements that comprise a pure Population II base to a measurement of Ho at an accuracy of 3%. These data are taken with the same instrument and filter (F160W) as our observations of RR Lyrae stars in external galaxies so as to minimize sources of systematic error in our calibration of the extragalactic distance scale. We calculate mean magnitudes based on one to three measurements for each RR Lyrae star using star-by-star templates generated from densely time-sampled data at optical and midinfrared wavelengths. We use four RR Lyrae stars from our sample with well-measured HST parallaxes to determine a zero-point. This zero-point will soon be improved with the large number of precise parallaxes to be provided by Gaia. We also provide preliminary calibration with the TGAS and Gaia DR2 data, and all three zero points are in agreement, to within their uncertainties.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/130/1
- Title:
- Catalog of source parameters in NICMOS UDF
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/130/1
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This paper describes the observations and data reduction techniques for the version 2.0 images and catalog of the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer Ultra Deep Field (NICMOS UDF) Treasury program. All sources discussed in this paper are based on detections in the combined NICMOS F110W and F160W bands only. The NICMOS images are drizzled to 0.09"/pixel and aligned to the Advanced Camera for Surveys UDF F850LP image, which was rebinned to the same pixel scale. These form the NICMOS version 2.0 UDF images. The catalog sources are chosen with a conservative detection limit to avoid the inclusion of numerous spurious sources. The catalog contains 1293 objects in the 144"x144" NICMOS subfield of the UDF. The 5{sigma} signal-to-noise ratio level is an average 0.6" diameter aperture AB magnitude of 27.7 at 1.1 and 1.6{mu}m. The catalog sources, listed in order of right ascension, satisfy a minimum signal-to-noise ratio criterion of 1.4{sigma} in at least seven contiguous pixels of the combined F110W and F160W image. Ten of the sources detected by the source extraction program SExtractor (SE) are not included in the catalog, leaving 1283 of the 1293 detected sources.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/885/161
- Title:
- 90 cepheid candidates nearby NGC 6814
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/885/161
- Date:
- 08 Mar 2022
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a Cepheid-based distance to the nearby Seyfert galaxy NGC6814 from Hubble Space Telescope observations. We obtained F555W and F814W imaging over the course of 12 visits with logarithmic time spacing in 2013 August-October. We detected and made photometric measurements for 16469 unique sources across all images in both filters, from which we identify 90 excellent Cepheid candidates spanning a range of periods of 13-84days. We find evidence for incompleteness in the detection of candidates at periods <21days. Based on the analysis of Cepheid candidates above the incompleteness limit, we determine a distance modulus for NGC6814 relative to the LMC of {mu}_rel,LMC_=13.200_-0.031_^+0.031^mag. Adopting the recent constraint of the distance modulus to the LMC determined by Pietrzynski et al., we find m-M=31.677_-0.041_^+0.041^ which gives a distance of 21.65{+/-}0.41Mpc to NGC6814.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/144/113
- Title:
- Cepheids and companions in M33 from HST images
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/144/113
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- A precise and accurate determination of the Hubble constant based on Cepheid variables requires proper characterization of many sources of systematic error. One of these is stellar blending, which biases the measured fluxes of Cepheids and the resulting distance estimates. We study the blending of 149 Cepheid variables in M33 by matching archival Hubble Space Telescope data with images obtained at the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO (WIYN) 3.5m telescope, which differ by a factor of 10 in angular resolution. We find that 55%+/-4% of the Cepheids have no detectable nearby companions that could bias the WIYN V-band photometry, while the fraction of Cepheids affected below the 10% level is 73%+/-4%. The corresponding values for the I band are 60%+/-4% and 72%+/-4%, respectively. We find no statistically significant difference in blending statistics as a function of period or surface brightness. Additionally, we report all the detected companions within 2" of the Cepheids (equivalent to 9pc at the distance of M33) which may be used to derive empirical blending corrections for Cepheids at larger distances.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/896/L43
- Title:
- Cepheids HST amplitudes in V- and H-band
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/896/L43
- Date:
- 21 Mar 2022 07:02:57
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The accuracy of the Hubble constant measured with extragalactic Cepheids depends on robust photometry and background estimation in the presence of stellar crowding. The conventional approach accounts for crowding by sampling backgrounds near Cepheids and assuming that they match those at their positions. We show a direct consequence of crowding by unresolved sources at Cepheid sites is a reduction in the fractional amplitudes of their light curves. We use a simple analytical expression to infer crowding directly from the light curve amplitudes of >200 Cepheids in three Type Ia supernovae hosts and NGC4258 as observed by Hubble Space Telescope-the first near-infrared amplitudes measured beyond the Magellanic Clouds. Where local crowding is minimal, we find near-infrared amplitudes match Milky Way Cepheids at the same periods. At greater stellar densities we find that the empirically measured amplitudes match the values predicted (with no free parameters) from crowding assessed in the conventional way from local regions, confirming their accuracy for estimating the background at the Cepheid locations. Extragalactic Cepheid amplitudes would need to be ~20% smaller than measured to indicate additional, unrecognized crowding as a primary source of the present discrepancy in H0. Rather, we find the amplitude data constrains a systematic mis-estimate of Cepheid backgrounds to be 0.029R+/-0.037mag, more than 5x smaller than the size of the present ~0.2mag tension in H0. We conclude that systematic errors in Cepheid backgrounds do not provide a plausible resolution to the Hubble tension.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/183/109
- Title:
- Cepheids in 3 host galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/183/109
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This is the first of two papers reporting measurements from a program to determine the Hubble constant to ~5% precision from a refurbished distance ladder. We present new observations of 110 Cepheid variables in the host galaxies of two recent Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), NGC 1309 and NGC 3021, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/733/124
- Title:
- Cepheids in M101 observed with HST
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/733/124
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We accurately determine a new Cepheid distance to M101 (NGC 5457) using archival Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Advanced Camera for Surveys V and I time series photometry of two fields within the galaxy. We make a slight modification to the ISIS image subtraction package to obtain optimal differential light curves from HST data. We discovered 827 Cepheids with periods between 3 and 80 days, the largest extragalactic sample of Cepheids observed with HST by a factor of two. With this large Cepheid sample, we find that the relative distance of M101 from the Large Magellanic Cloud is {Delta}{mu}_LMC_=10.63+/-0.04 (random) +/-0.06 (systematic) mag. If we use the geometrically determined maser distance to NGC 4258 as our distance anchor, the distance modulus of M101 is {mu}_0_=29.04+/-0.05 (random) +/-0.18 (systematic) mag or D=6.4+/-0.2 (random) +/-0.5 (systematic) Mpc. The uncertainty is dominated by the maser distance estimate (+/-0.15mag), which should improve over the next few years.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/699/539
- Title:
- Cepheids in SN-Ia host galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/699/539
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This is the second of two papers reporting results from a program to determine the Hubble constant to ~5% precision from a refurbished distance ladder based on extensive use of differential measurements. Here we report observations of 240 Cepheid variables obtained with the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) Camera 2 through the F160W filter on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The Cepheids are distributed across six recent hosts of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and the "maser galaxy" NGC 4258, allowing us to directly calibrate the peak luminosities of the SNe Ia from the precise, geometric distance measurements provided by the masers. New features of our measurement include the use of the same instrument for all Cepheid measurements across the distance ladder and homogeneity of the Cepheid periods and metallicities, thus necessitating only a differential measurement of Cepheid fluxes and reducing the largest systematic uncertainties in the determination of the fiducial SN Ia luminosity. In addition, the NICMOS measurements reduce the effects of differential extinction in the host galaxies by a factor of ~5 over past optical data. Combined with a greatly expanded set of 240 SNe Ia at z<0.1 which define their magnitude-redshift relation, we find H_0_=74.2+/-3.6km/s/Mpc, a 4.8% uncertainty including both statistical and systematic errors.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/700/1702
- Title:
- ChaMPlane deep galactic bulge survey. I.
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/700/1702
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We have carried out a deep X-ray and optical survey with Chandra and HST of low-extinction regions in the Galactic bulge. Here we present the results of a search for low-luminosity (L_X_<~10^34^erg/s) accreting binaries among the Chandra sources in the region closest to the Galactic center, at an angular offset of 1.4{deg}, that we have named the Limiting Window (LW). Based on their blue optical colors, excess H{alpha} fluxes, and high X-ray-to-optical flux ratios, we identify three likely accreting binaries; these are probably white dwarfs accreting from low-mass companions (cataclysmic variables; CVs) although we cannot exclude that they are quiescent neutron-star or black-hole low-mass X-ray binaries. Distance estimates put these systems farther than >~2kpc. Based on their H{alpha}-excess fluxes and/or high X-ray-to-optical flux ratios, we find 22 candidate accreting binaries; however, the properties of some can also be explained if they are dMe stars or active galaxies.