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L.M. Macri, K.Z. Stanek, D.D. Sasselov, M. Krockenberger (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), J. Kaluzny (Copernicus Astronomical Center)
The DIRECT project has obtained a total of 170 nights on the FLWO 1.2-meter telescope and 35 nights on the MDM 1.3-meter telescope from 1996 to 1999 to search for detached eclipsing binaries and Cepheids in the M31 and M33 galaxies. This is the first step in an ongoing program to improve the direct distance estimate to these two important galaxies in the cosmological distance ladder. Detached eclipsing binaries provide us with the potential to determine these distances with an accuracy better than 5% and possibly to better than 1%. The massive photometry provides us with good light curves for known and new Cepheid variables. These are essential to derive direct Baade-Wesselink distances to the galaxies. With both Cepheids and eclipsing binaries, the distance estimates will be free of any intermediate steps.
We present the variables found in the inner part of M33, the resulting Cepheid P-L relations, and a new distance determination to this galaxy. Future work on outer fields of this galaxy will be combined with the present results to arrive at a new determination of the effects of metallicity in the Cepheid P-L relation.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~kstanek/DIRECT. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser. [Previous] | [Session 11] | [Next]