[21.07] The Star Formation History of the Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxy SBS 1415+437

AAS 199th meeting, Washington, DC, January 2002
Session 21. Dwarf Galaxies
Display, Monday, January 7, 2002, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibit Hall

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[21.07] The Star Formation History of the Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxy SBS 1415+437

D. Kahler, M. M. Crone (Skidmore College), R. E. Schulte-Ladbeck (U. Pittsburgh)

We present the star formation history of the cometary blue compact dwarf galaxy SBS 1415+437, determined by comparing Hubble Space Telescope data to synthetic color-magnitude diagrams. Despite previous claims that this galaxy is as young as 100 Myr, we find that its stellar content requires star formation earlier than 500 Myr ago. In particular, the observed I-band luminosity function shows a large population of stars at magnitudes fainter than M_I=-4, which are not produced in younger models. Our models also show enhanced star formation for the past 10 Myr, and provide a distance modulus of 29.78+/-0.3 magnitudes.

This project was funded by a Keck Collaborative Research Grant at Skidmore College.

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