Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 429, Issue 3, Pages 837-850Publisher
E D P SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20041608
Keywords
stars : late-type; stars : distances; galaxies : Local Group; galaxies : abundances; galaxies : photometry; infrared : stars
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Observations in the IJK(s) wave bands covering the central 20' x 20' of the Local Group galaxy NGC 6822 have been made with the William Herschel Telescope in La Palma. They have allowed us to characterize, for the first time in the near-infrared across the whole galaxy, its late-type stellar population (i.e. red giant and asymptotic giant branch stars) and to derive from the ratio between carbon-rich and oxygen-rich asymptotic giant branch stars an indication about spatial variations in metallicity. These amount to about 1.56 dex, twice of what has been previously found within each Magellanic Cloud using the same technique. We have calibrated our photometry on the DENIS (I-band) and 2MASS (J and K-s bands) data and obtained a distance modulus of (m-M)(0) = 23.34+/-0.12 from the position of the tip of the RGB. The large scale distribution of late-type stars suggests that either the galaxy is viewed under a high inclination angle or it has a non-negligible thickness.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available