Variable stars in the northern Galactic plane from KISOGP

Noriyuki Matsunaga,M Catelan,W Gieren

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201715201027

Abstract

We have conducted a large-scale survey of the northern plane using Kiso Wide Field Camera attached to Schmidt telescope at Kiso observatory. The KISOGP (KWFC Intensive Survey of the Galactic Plane) project have made 40-70 epoch observations in I band of about 320 sq. degrees for 5 years starting in 2012. The limiting magnitude is around 16.5 in I. In the data analysis so far, we detected a couple of thousands of variable stars including approximately 100 Cepheids and more than 700 Miras. Roughly 90 percent of them were not previously reported as variable stars, indicating that there are still many relatively bright variables to be found in the Galactic plane.

Highlights

A large fraction of stars and gas is concentrated within the Galactic disk
We have conducted an I-band survey of variable stars in the northern Galactic disk because it has been less explored compared to the southern part for which OGLE1 and VVV2 have discovered a large number of new variables
The instrument used for our survey is Kiso Wide Field Camera (KWFC) attached to 105-cm Schmidt telescope in Kiso Observatory, Japan ([4])

Summary

Introduction

A large fraction of stars and gas is concentrated within the Galactic disk. Historic surveys of variable stars, mostly done in the optical wavelengths, were far from complete (see, e.g., Fig. 1 in [2]). Gaia and other ongoing surveys in the optical are expected to find many new variables, while infrared surveys would be more effective for objects obscured in the disk (see our review [3] in these proceedings).

Results

Conclusion