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DIRECT Distances to Local Group Galaxies

Dimitar D. Sasselov
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Abstract

The two nearby galaxies, M31 and M33, are stepping stones for most of our current efforts to understand the evolving universe at large scales. We are undertaking a long term project, called DIRECT, to improve the direct distance estimate to M31 and M33. The massive photometry we have obtained as part of our project over the past 3 years provides us with very good light curves for known and new Cepheid variables, a large number of eclipsing binaries and other variable stars. Some recent results on the 470+ new Cepheids are discussed, as well as our correction for effects of blending using archival HST images.

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Dimitar D. Sasselov. 1999-12-16. DIRECT Distances to Local Group Galaxies. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9912334

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