Related papers: A Cepheid distance to NGC 4258

We present the detection of Cepheids in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1313, using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescpoe. Twenty B (F450W) and V (F555W) epochs of observations spanning over three weeks were…

This is the first of two papers reporting measurements from a program to determine the Hubble constant to 5% precision from a refurbished distance ladder. We present new observations of 110 Cepheid variables in the host galaxies of two…

We report observations of 240 Cepheid variables obtained with the Near Infrared Camera (NICMOS) through the F160W filter on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The Cepheids are distributed across six recent hosts of Type Ia supernovae (SNe…

NGC 4258 is one of the most important anchors for calibrating the Cepheid period--luminosity relations (PLRs) owing to its accurate distance measured from water maser motions. We expand on previous efforts and carry out a new Cepheid search…

Cepheid masses are particularly necessary to help solving the mass discrepancy, while independent distance determinations provide crucial test of the period-luminosity relation and Gaia parallaxes. We used CHARA/MIRC to measure the…

The rationale behind recent calibrations of the Cepheid PL relation using the Wesenheit formulation is reviewed and reanalyzed, and it is shown that recent conclusions regarding a possible change in slope of the PL relation for short-period…

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…

The cosmological distance ladder crucially depends on classical Cepheids (with P=3-80 days), which are primary distance indicators up to 33 Mpc. Within this volume, very few SNe Ia have been calibrated through classical Cepheids, with…

The methods of calibrating the luminosities of galactic Cepheids and determining Cepheid reddenings are considered in some detail. Together with work on NGC4258 this suggests that the calibration presented is valid to about 0.1mag (s.e.) at…

Since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope nine years ago, Cepheid distances to 25 galaxies have been determined for the purpose of calibrating secondary distance indicators. A variety of these can now be calibrated, and the…

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…

We present a complete theoretical scenario for classical Cepheids in the most commonly used HST/WFC3 filters, going from optical (F555W, F606W and F814W) to near-infrared (F160W) bands. The importance of such a study is related to the…

We develop a statistical method for using multicolor photometry to determine distances using Cepheid variables including the effects of temperature, extinction, and metallicity and apply it to UBVRIJHK photometry of 694 Cepheids in 17…

I reanalyse the Riess et al. (2011, hereafter R11) Cepheid data using the revised geometric maser distance to NGC 4258 of Humphreys et al. (2013). I explore different outlier rejection criteria designed to give a reduced chi-squared of…

Classical Cepheids are blue loop stars that have famously been dubbed "magnifying glasses of stellar evolution" and have been studied for a long time. As more and more precise observations of Cepheids are secured over ever-increasing…

A quantitative spectroscopic study of blue supergiant stars in the Hubble constant anchor galaxy NGC 4258 is presented. The non-LTE analysis of Keck I telescope LRIS spectra yields a central logarithmic metallicity (in units of the solar…

New Hubble Space Telescope observations of Cepheid variable stars in the nearby galaxy M96 give a distance to the host galaxy group, Leo-I, of 11.6+/-0.8 Mpc. This value, used in conjunction with several reliable secondary indicators of…

Ten years ago our team completed the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project on the extragalactic distance scale. Cepheids were detected in some 25 galaxies and used to calibrate four secondary distance indicators that reach out into the…

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…

With this paper we continue the preparation for a forthcoming summary report of our experiment with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to determine the Hubble constant using type Ia supernovae as standard candles. Two problems are addressed.…