Related papers: Globular Cluster Distance Determinations
Time-series VI CCD photometry of the globular cluster M10 (NGC 6254) is employed to perform a detailed identification, inspection of their light curves, their classification and their cluster membership, of all the known variables reported…
Aiming at providing a firm mean distance estimate to the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and thus to place it within the internally consistent Local Group distance framework we recently established, we compiled the current-largest database of…
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…
In this paper we investigate whether a misestimate of proper motions could have been a source of substantial systematic errors in the statistical parallax determination of the absolute magnitude of RR Lyrae stars. In an earlier paper, we…
This paper summaries the status of a large project to improve distance scales of various classes of variable stars. This is being carried out by a large group in Cape Town, Japan, England and the USA. The results are illustrated by giving…
We report CCD $V$ and $I$ time-series photometry of the globular cluster NGC 6333 (M9). The technique of difference image analysis has been used, which enables photometric precision better than 0.05 mag for stars brighter than $V \sim 19.0$…
The MACHO Project has catalogued $\sim 8000$ RR Lyrae stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, $\sim 1800$ in the Galactic bulge, and $\sim$ 50 in the Sgr dwarf galaxy. These variables are excellent distance indicators, and are used as tools to…
We use the results from recent computations of updated non-linear convective pulsating models to constrain the distance modulus of Galactic globular clusters through the observed periods of first overtone RRc pulsators. The resulting…
We infer distances and their asymmetric uncertainties for two million stars using the parallaxes published in the Gaia DR1 (GDR1) catalogue. We do this with two distance priors: A minimalist, isotropic prior assuming an exponentially…
We present new absolute trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions for seven Pop II variable stars: five RR Lyr variables; RZ Cep, XZ Cyg, SU Dra, RR Lyr, UV Oct; and two type 2 Cepheids; VY Pyx and {\kappa} Pav. We obtained these results…
We present a review of the present state of knowledge regarding the relative ages of Galactic globular clusters. First, we discuss the relevant galaxy formation models and describe the detailed predictions they make with respect to the…
We present new period-luminosity and period-luminosity-metallicity relations for Galactic RR Lyrae stars based on a sample of 28 pulsators located at distances up to $1.5$ kpc from the Sun. Near-infrared photometry was obtained at the Cerro…
We cross-match objects from several different astronomical catalogs to determine the absolute proper proper motions of stars within the 30-arcmin radius fields of 115 Milky-Way globular clusters with the accuracy of 1--2~mas/yr. The proper…
Globular clusters (GCs) are the most ancient stellar systems in the Milky Way. Therefore, they play a key role in the understanding of the early chemical and dynamical evolution of our Galaxy. Around $40\%$ of them are placed within $\sim4$…
We homogeneously measured the elliptical shapes of 163 globular clusters (GCs) using the on-sky distribution of their cluster members and the third data release of the ESA mission Gaia (DR3). The astrometry enables the differentiation of…
We consider the published distance moduli to the Fornax and Coma galaxy clusters, with emphasis on the period since 1990. We have carefully homogenized our catalogs of distance moduli onto the distance scale established in the previous…
We report CCD V and I time series photometry of the globular cluster NGC 5024 (M53). The technique of difference image analysis has been used which enables photometric precisions better than 10 mmag for stars brighter than V 18.5mag even in…
A new reduction of the astrometric data as produced by the Hipparcos mission has been published, claiming that the accuracies for nearly all stars brighter than magnitude $\mathrm{Hp}=8$ are improved, by up to a factor 4, compared to the…
For the vast majority of stars in the second Gaia data release, reliable distances cannot be obtained by inverting the parallax. A correct inference procedure must instead be used to account for the nonlinearity of the transformation and…
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…