Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aas...192.8404n&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 192nd AAS Meeting, #84.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 30, p.1157
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present a determination of the distance to NGC 4603 based on the periods and magnitudes of Cepheid variables observed with the Hubble Space telescope. NGC 4603 is the most distant galaxy in which Cepheids have been detected. It is a spiral galaxy in the ``Cen 30'' portion of the Centaurus cluster that is concentrated around a redshift of 3,000 km/s. Previous distance estimates for the Cen 30 cluster suggested a large peculiar motion, but neither optical or IRAS galaxy maps reveal a plausible structure with sufficient mass to generate this motion. Therefore, we obtained images of NGC 4603 with the Hubble Space Telescope at nine epochs (totalling 24 orbits) over 14 months in the F555W filter and 2 epochs (6 orbits) in the F814W filter. Using our WFPC2 observations, we have found a number of Cepheid variable stars with well-determined oscillation periods and mean magnitudes, in addition to a comparable number of stars whose photometric errors mimic Cepheid light curves. Through a detailed maximum likelihood analysis, we have been able to account for the effect of these non-variable contaminants and firmly establish the distance to NGC 4603.
Davis Martin
Freedman Wendy
Madore Barry
Neman J. A.
Phelps Randy
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