Related papers: The Mira-based distance to the Galactic centre
We present year-long, near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 observations of Mira variables in the water megamaser host galaxy NGC 4258. Miras are AGB variables that can be divided into oxygen- (O-) and carbon- (C-) rich subclasses.…
The distance modulus of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the first step on the determination of the cosmic distance scale. In this paper it is obtained from a new calibration of the classical Cepheid Period-Luminosity (PL) relation. Our…
The Galactic kinematics of Mira variables have been studied using infrared photometry, radial velocities, and Hipparcos parallaxes and proper motions. For Miras in the period range 145 to 200 days (probably corresponding to [Fe/H] in the…
We present results from an analysis of $\sim$ 29,000 RR Lyrae stars located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). For these objects, near-infrared time-series photometry from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC) and optical…
We used the 50 cm Binocular Network (50BiN) telescope at Delingha Station (Qinghai Province) of Purple Mountain Observatory (Chinese Academy of Sciences) to obtain simultaneous $V$- and $R$-band observations of the old open cluster NGC 188.…
The goal of this paper is to characterise the light variation properties of Mira variables in the Small Magellanic Cloud. We have investigated a combined optical and near infrared multi-epoch dataset of Mira variables based on our…
Variable stars with well-calibrated period-luminosity relationships provide accurate distance measurements to nearby galaxies and are therefore a vital tool for cosmology and astrophysics. While these measurements typically rely on samples…
We assemble the largest sample of oxygen rich Miras to date and highlight their importance for age-dating the components of the Galaxy. Using data from the Catalina Rapid Transient Survey and the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, we…
That the RR Lyrae star period -- K-band luminosity relation is a promising tool as a distance indicator in the Milky Way and Local Group of Galaxies is apparent on observational and theoretical grounds in the literature. Less clear is the…
Near-infrared, JHKL, photometry of 239 Galactic carbon-rich variable stars is presented and discussed. From these and published data the stars were classified as Mira or non-Mira variables and amplitudes and pulsation periods, ranging from…
We present a new geometrical method for measuring the distance to the Galactic center (R_0) by solving for the Keplerian orbit of individual stars bound to the black hole associated with the Sgr A* from radial velocity and proper motion…
The properties of the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc give crucial information on the epoch of bar formation. Mira variables are promising bright candidates to study the nuclear stellar disc, and through their period-age relation dissect…
CONTEXT. One of the most difficult and unexplored regions of the Milky Way is the highly extincted in-plane central region within the Galactic coordinates $10^\circ \lesssim |\ell |\lesssim 30^\circ $, $|b|\lesssim 3^\circ $, where we have…
(abridged) New photometry and spectroscopy for more than a hundred RR Lyrae stars in two fields located close to the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are used to derive new accurate estimates of the average magnitude, the local…
Using 25 years of data from uninterrupted monitoring of stellar orbits in the Galactic Center, we present an update of the main results from this unique data set: A measurement of mass of and distance to SgrA*. Our progress is not only due…
We present a distance determination to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) based on an analysis of four detached, long period, late type eclipsing binaries discovered by the OGLE Survey. The components of the binaries show negligible intrinsic…
We present new observational results on the RR Lyrae K-band Period-Luminosity relation (PLK). Data on the Galactic globular clusters NGC 3201 and NGC 4590 (M68), and on the Large Magellanic Cloud cluster Reticulum are shown. We compare the…
Estimating a distance by inverting a parallax is only valid in the absence of noise. As most stars in the Gaia catalogue will have non-negligible fractional parallax errors, we must treat distance estimation as a constrained inference…
M giants, with their distinctive properties such as high luminosity, serve as excellent indicators for mapping the structure of the Milky Way. The distance to distant M giants can be determined by using the color-magnitude relation (CMR),…
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…