Astronomy & Astrophysics

Issue		A&A Volume 446, Number 2, February I 2006
Page(s)		773 - 783
Section		On-line catalogs and data
DOI		10.1051/0004-6361:20053268

A&A 446, 773-783 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20053268

An infrared study of galactic OH/IR stars

II. The "GLMP sample" of red oxygen-rich AGB stars

F. M. Jiménez-Esteban^{1, 2}, P. García-Lario³, D. Engels² and J. V. Perea Calderón¹

¹ ISO Data Centre / European Space Astronomy Center, Villafranca del Castillo, Apartado de Correos 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain
e-mail: fjimenez@iso.vilspa.esa.es
² Hamburger Sternwarte, Gojenbergsweg 112, 21029 Hamburg, Germany
e-mail: Francisco.Jimenez-Esteban@hs.uni-hamburg.de
³ ISO Data Centre / European Space Astronomy Center, Research and Scientific Support Department of ESA, Villafranca del Castillo, Apartado de Correos 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain

(Received 19 April 2005 / Accepted 21 July 2005 )

Abstract
We present optical and near-infrared finding charts taken from the DSS and 2MASS surveys of 94 IRAS sources selected from the GLMP catalogue, and accurate astrometry ( $\approx$ 0.2´´) for most of them. Selection criteria were very red IRAS colours representative for OH/IR stars with optically thick circumstellar shells and the presence of variability according to the IRAS variability index ( $\rm VAR>50$ ). The main photometric properties of the stars in this "GLMP sample" are presented, discussed and compared with the correspondent properties of the "Arecibo sample" of OH/IR stars studied nearlier. We find that 37% of the sample (N=34) has no counterpart in the 2MASS, implying extremely high optical depths of their shells. Most of the sources identified in the 2MASS are faint ( $K\ga8$ ) and are of very red colour in the near-infrared, as expected. The brightest 2MASS counterpart (K=5.3 mag) was found for IRAS 18299-1705. Its blue colour H-K=1.3 suggests that IRAS 18299-1705 is a post-AGB star. Few GLMP sources have faint but relatively blue counterparts. They might be misidentifed field stars or stars that recently experienced a drop of their mass loss rates. The "GLMP sample" in general is made of oxygen-rich AGB stars, which are highly obscured by their circumstellar shells. They belong to the same population as the reddest OH/IR stars in the "Arecibo sample".

Key words: stars: AGB and post-AGB

SIMBAD Objects
Tables at the CDS

What is OpenURL?