AAS 201st Meeting, January, 2003
Session 112. The ISM: Clouds and Regions
Poster, Thursday, January 9, 2003, 9:20am-4:00pm, Exhibit Hall AB

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[112.03] ATCA Observations of Water Masers in the Magellanic Clouds

A.J. Beasley (California Institute of Technology), L. Staveley-Smith (Australia Telescope National Facility), K.B. Marvel (American Astronomical Society), M.J. Claussen (National Radio Astronomy Observatory), D. Boboltz (United States Naval Observatory)

Using the new 22 GHz receiver systems of the CSIRO Australia Telescope Compact Array we have surveyed a sample of star-forming regions and late-type stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds to search for bright water masers. Several historically-known and new water masers have been detected, and follow-up monitoring studies are planned. The long-term goal of this research is to identify and characterize water masers and bright continuum sources which could be used in astrometric VLBI experiments to measure the proper motions and parallaxes of the LMC/SMC. The distance to the Magellanic Clouds is a core component of our current Cepheid-based extragalactic distance scale, and future radio campaigns could play a key role in refining it.


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: tbeasley@ovro.caltech.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.