Related papers: Distances to Nearby Galaxies: Combining Fragmentar…
The Hubble Space Telescope is being used to measure accurate Cepheid distances to nearby galaxies with the ultimate aim of determining the Hubble constant, H_0. For the first time, it has become feasible to use Cepheid variables to derive a…
Galaxy clusters have their unique advantages for cosmology. Here we collect a new sample of 10 lensing galaxy clusters with X-ray observations to constrain cosmological parameters.The redshifts of lensing clusters lie between 0.1 and 0.6,…
A model for the mass in and around the Local Group previously used to fit redshifts of dwarf galaxies to their distances between 50 kpc and 2.6 Mpc under the condition of small and growing primeval departures from homogeneity is shown to…
We have undertaken several projects with the purpose of determining accurate distances to nearby galaxies to calibrate the extragalactic distance scale. Specifically, I describe the DIRECT project which aims to derive the distance to M31…
We have used new parallax measurements, obtained by the Hipparcos satellite, of fifteen nearby, metal-poor stars to re-define the subdwarf main-sequence. All of these stars have parallaxes determined to an accuracy of at least 12 %.…
Considerable progress has been made in determining the Hubble constant over the past two decades. We discuss the cosmological context and importance of an accurate measurement of the Hubble constant, and focus on six high-precision…
Observations of galaxy clusters (GC's) are a powerful tool to probe the evolution of the Universe at $z<2$. However, the determination of their real shape and structure is not completely understood and the assumption of asphericity is often…
In the early nineties several teams started large scale systematic surveys of the Magellanic Clouds and the Galactic Bulge to search for microlensing effects. As a by product, these groups have created enormous time-series databases of…
Redshift-independent distances underpin much of astrophysics, and there exists a plethora of methods to estimate them. However, the extent to which the distances they imply are consistent, while crucial for the integrity of the distance…
AIMS: We present in this work low and intermediate resolution spectroscopic data collected for 152 early type galaxies in 8 nearby clusters with z $\leq$ 0.10. METHODS: We use low resolution data to produce the redshift and the K-correction…
Here we review the efforts of a number of recent results that use old tracers to understand the build up of the Galaxy. Details that lead directly to using these old tracers to measure distances are discussed. We concentrate on the…
Generative models are invaluable in many fields of science because of their ability to capture high-dimensional and complicated distributions, such as photo-realistic images, protein structures, and connectomes. How do we evaluate the…
The dynamical evolution of the globular cluster systems in galaxies is predicted, based on the standard dynamical theory normalized to the example of the Milky Way. The major processes varying with the galactocentric distance are the tidal…
We analyze Hubble Space Telescope observations of six globular clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud from program GO-14164 in Cycle 23. These are the deepest available observations of the LMC globular cluster population; their uniformity…
Determining star cluster distances is essential to analyse their properties and distribution in the Galaxy. In particular it is desirable to have a reliable, purely photometric distance estimation method for large samples of newly…
We test two different methods of using near-infrared extinction to estimate distances to dark clouds in the first quadrant of the Galaxy using large near infrared (2MASS and UKIDSS) surveys. VLBI parallax measurements of masers around…
Close pairs of galaxies have been broadly studied in the literature as a way to understand galaxy interactions and mergers. In observations they are usually defined by setting a maximum separation in the sky and in velocity along the line…
Astronomers have constructed models of globular clusters for over 100 years. These models mainly fall into two categories: (i) static models, such as King's model and its variants, and (ii) evolutionary models. Most attention has been given…
Over the last few years, rapid progress has been made in distance measurements for nearby galaxies based on the magnitude of the tip of red giant branch stars. Current CCD surveys with HST and large ground- based telescopes bring…
Many observable properties of globular clusters (GCs) provide valuable insights for unveiling the hierarchical assembly of their host galaxy. For the Milky Way (MW) in particular, GCs from different accreted satellite galaxies show distinct…