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D. Harbeck (UC Berkeley, SSL), E. Grebel (Uni Basel), J. Gallagher (UW Madison), A. Koch (Uni Basel), D. Zucker (MPIA)
We present WIYN follow-up observations of the recently discovered And IX dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellite galaxy of M\,31. Our data obtained at a natural seeing of 0.5'' confirms And IX as an dSph galaxy with a distance similar to M\,31. There is no evidence for an intermediate-age (1-10\,Gyr) stellar population in And IX. From the red giant branch we determine a metallicity of order of -2 dex, letting the low-mass And IX fit well into the luminosity-metallicity relation of Local Group dSph galaxies. We conclude that And IX is indeed an extremely faint, low mass of member the Local Group and discuss implications for dwarf galaxy formation.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.