The discovery of cepheids and a new distance to NGC 2841 using the Hubble space telescope Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We report on the discovery of Cepheids in the spiral galaxy NGC 2841, based on observations made with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 2841 was observed over 12 epochs using the F555W filter and over five epochs using the F814W filter. Photometry was performed using the DAOPHOT/ALLFRAME package. We discovered a total of 29 variables, including 18 high-quality Cepheids with periods ranging from 15 to 40 days. Period-luminosity relations in the V and I bands, based on the high-quality Cepheids, yield a reddening-corrected distance modulus of 30.74 0.23 mag, which corresponds to a distance of 14.1 1.5 Mpc. Our distance is based on an assumed LMC distance modulus of 0 = 18.50 0.10 mag (D = 50 2.5 kpc) and a metallicity dependence of the Cepheid P-L relation of VI = -0.2 0.2 mag dex-1.

published proceedings

  • Astrophysical Journal

author list (cited authors)

  • Macri, L. M., Stetson, P. B., Bothun, G. D., Freedman, W. L., Garnavich, P. M., Jha, S., Madore, B. F., & Richmond, M. W.

complete list of authors

  • Macri, LM||Stetson, PB||Bothun, GD||Freedman, WL||Garnavich, PM||Jha, S||Madore, BF||Richmond, MW

publication date

  • September 2001