Related papers: An updated maximum likelihood approach to open clu…

Using parallaxes from Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3), we determine multi-wavelength BVI, JHK, and [3.6] & [4.5] micron absolute magnitudes for 37 nearby Milky Way Cepheids, covering the period range between 5 and 60 days. We apply these…

A most desirable feature of a standard candle to estimate astronomical distances is robustness against changes in metallicity and age. It is argued that the radii of main sequence stars with spectral types from solar to A0 show predictable…

Open clusters (OCs) are popular tracers of the structure and evolutionary history of the Galactic disk. The OC population is often considered to be complete within 1.8 kpc of the Sun. The recent Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) allows the latter…

The publication of the \emph{Gaia} catalogue and improvements in methods to determine memberships and fundamental parameters of open clusters has led to major advances in recent years. However, important parameters such as the masses of…

The understanding of the nature of intermediate and high velocity gas in the Milky Way is hampered by a paucity of distance estimates to individual clouds. A project has been started at the David Dunlap Observatory to address this lack of…

Context: Planetary Nebula distance scales often suffer for model dependent solutions. Model independent trigonometric parallaxes have been rare. Space based trigonometric parallaxes are now available for a larger sample using the second…

We derive individual distances to six Cepheids in the young populous star cluster NGC1866 in the Large Magellanic Cloud employing the near-IR surface brightness technique. With six stars available at the exact same distance we can directly…

Context. Observations indicate that the fraction of potential binary star clusters in the Milky Way is either the same or lower than that of the Magellanic Clouds. The unprecedented precision in the parallax measurements by Gaia has allowed…

Studying open clusters (OCs) is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the structure and evolution of the Milky Way. Many previous studies have systematically searched for OCs near the solar system within 1.2 kpc or 20 degrees of…

In this study, we estimate the fraction of binaries with high mass ratios for 202 open clusters in the extended solar neighbourhood (closer than 1.5 kpc from the Sun). This is one of the largest homogeneous catalogues of multiplicity…

We present new accurate Period-Luminosity (PL) and Period-Wesenheit (PW) relations in the V,J,Ks bands based on a sample of more than 4500 Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) whose photometry was obtained in the context of the…

We present the results of a large scale search for new members of the Pleiades star cluster using 2MASS near-infrared photometry and proper motions derived from POSS plates digitized by the USNO PMM program. The search extends to a 10…

New distances, larger than previous ones, have been obtained for M 31 and M 81 based on the geometrical zero-point of the Cepheid Period-luminosity relation provided by the HIPPARCOS satellite. By combining them with independent…

Many statistical and machine learning approaches rely on pairwise distances between data points. The choice of distance metric has a fundamental impact on performance of these procedures, raising questions about how to appropriately…

Precise measurement of the fundamental parameters of stellar systems, including mass and radius, depends critically on how well the stellar distances are known. Astrometry from space provides parallax measurements of unprecented accuracy,…

For application to surveys of interstellar matter and Galactic structure, we compute new spectrophotometric distances to 139 OB stars frequently used as background targets for UV spectroscopy. Many of these stars have updated spectral types…

Data from the Gaia satellite are revolutionising our understanding of the Milky Way. With every new data release, there is a need to update the census of open clusters. We aim to conduct a blind, all-sky search for open clusters using 729…

The Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) subset of the first Gaia catalogue contains an unprecedented sample of proper motions and parallaxes for two million stars brighter than G~12 mag. We take advantage of the full astrometric solution…

Six independent methods yield a Virgo cluster modulus of (m-M)=31.66+/- 0.08. This inserted into the Hubble diagram of clusters, whose relative distances to the Virgo cluster are known, gives H_0=54+/-4. The result is independent of any…

The second data release from the Gaia mission (Gaia DR2) includes, among its billion entries, as- trometric parameters for binary companions to a number of known pulsars, including white dwarf companions to millisecond pulsars and the…