Related papers: Pseudomagnitude Distances: Application to the Plei…
A summary is given of an analysis of the Hipparcos trigonometrical parallaxes and proper motions of classical Cepheids. It is possible for the first time to derive zero-points for the period-luminosity and period-luminosity-colour relations…
Accurate distances to pulsars can be used for a variety of studies of the Galaxy and its electron content. However, most distance measures to pulsars have been derived from the absorption (or lack thereof) of pulsar emission by Galactic HI…
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…
X-ray and Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect observations can be combined to measure the distance to clusters of galaxies. If the intracluster gas distribution is not spherical, but elongated by a factor of Z along the line of sight, the inferred…
We reconsider calibration of statistical distance scales for planetary nebulae, examining precision and systematic error for various distance methods used as well as the scales themselves. A different calibration strategy, one based on…
In determining the distances to stars within the Milky Way galaxy, one often uses photometric or spectroscopic parallax. In these methods, the type of each individual star is determined, and the absolute magnitude of that star type is…
We report the discovery of a nearby star with a very large proper motion of 5.06 +/- 0.03 arcsec/yr. The star is called SO025300.5+165258 and referred to herein as HPMS (high proper motion star). The discovery came as a result of a search…
We present a hierarchical probabilistic model for improving geometric stellar distance estimates using color--magnitude information. This is achieved with a data driven model of the color--magnitude diagram, not relying on stellar models…
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…
By correcting the redshift--dependent distances for peculiar motions through a number of peculiar velocity field models, we recover the true distances of a wide, all-sky sample of nearby galaxies (~ 6400 galaxies with velocities cz<5500…
The Magellanic Clouds, especially the Large Magellanic Cloud, are places where multiple distance indicators can be compared with each other in a straight-forward manner at considerable precision. We here review the distances derived from…
We compare the absolute visual magnitude of the majority of bright O stars in the sky as predicted from their spectral type with the absolute magnitude calculated from their apparent magnitude and the Hipparcos parallax. We find that many…
We calculated the median parallaxes for 47 OB associations including at least 10 stars with known Gaia DR2 parallaxes. A comparison between trigonometric and photometric parallaxes of OB associations reveals a zero-point offset of…
We present HST photometry of 17 Cepheids in open clusters and their mean parallaxes from Gaia EDR3. These parallaxes are more precise than those from individual Cepheids (G<8 mag) previously used to measure the Hubble constant because they…
Mean proper motions and parallaxes of 205 open clusters were determined from their member stars found in the Hipparcos Catalogue. 360 clusters were searched for possible members, excluding nearby clusters with distances D < 200 pc. Members…
Thanks to HST, there are now many galaxies with Cepheid distances and these provide the main platform for the calibration of the secondary distance indicators. I review recent progress in our understanding of the standard candle properties…
Distance measurements beyond geometrical and semi-geometrical methods, rely mainly on standard candles. As the name suggests, these objects have known luminosities by virtue of their intrinsic proprieties and play a major role in our…
In addition to cosmological tests based on the mass function and clustering of galaxy clusters, which probe the growth of cosmic structure, nature offers two independent ways of using clusters to measure cosmic distances. The first uses…
Hipparcos data provide the first, volume limited and absolute magnitude limited homogeneous tracer of stellar density and velocity distributions in the solar neighbourhood. The density of A-type stars more luminous than $M_v=2.5$ can be…
Secular extragalactic parallax caused by the solar system's velocity relative to the cosmic microwave background rest frame may be observable as a dipole proper motion field with amplitude $78~\mu$as yr$^{-1}$ Mpc. Nearby galaxies also…