Issue |
A&A
Volume 572, December 2014
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A64 | |
Number of page(s) | 5 | |
Section | Extragalactic astronomy | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201424444 | |
Published online | 01 December 2014 |
Evidence for photometric contamination in key observations of Cepheids in the benchmark galaxy IC 1613
1
Department of Astronomy & PhysicsSaint Mary’s
University,
Halifax,
NS
B3H 3C3
Canada
e-mail:
dmajaess@ap.smu.ca
2
Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, NS
B3M 2J6,
Canada
3
Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de
Concepción, Casilla
160-C, Concepción,
Chile
4
Graduate Institute of Astronomy, National Central
University, 32001
Jhongli City,
Taiwan
Received: 21 June 2014
Accepted: 9 September 2014
This study helps increase awareness of the pernicious effects of photometric contamination (crowding/blending), since it can propagate an undesirable systematic offset into the cosmic distance scale. The latest Galactic Cepheid Wesenheit (VIc) and Spitzer calibrations were employed to establish distances for classical Cepheids in IC 1613 and NGC 6822, thus enabling the impact of photometric contamination to be assessed in concert with metallicity. Distances (WVIc, [3.6]) for Cepheids in IC 1613 exhibit a galactocentric dependence, whereby Cepheids near the core appear (spuriously) too bright (rg< 2′). That effect is attributed to photometric contamination from neighboring (unresolved) stars, since the stellar density and surface brightness may increase with decreasing galactocentric distance. The impact is relatively indiscernible for a comparison sample of Cepheids occupying NGC 6822, a result that is partly attributable to that sample being nearer than the metal-poor galaxy IC 1613. WVIc and [3.6] distances for relatively uncontaminated Cepheids in each galaxy are comparable, thus confirming that period-magnitude relations (Leavitt Law) in those bands are relatively insensitive to metallicity (Δ [ Fe/H ] ≃ 1).
Key words: stars: variables: Cepheids
© ESO, 2014
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