2006/12/05 by C. J. Evans, F. Bresolin, M. A. Urbaneja +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Blue supergiant #Dwarf galaxy #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Local Group #Radial velocity #Red supergiant #Spectroscopy #Stellar kinematics #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Supergiant #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/511382
published as Astrophys.J.659:1198-1211,2007 · 42 pages, 19 figures (most reduced in size). Accepted for publication in ApJ. A copy with full res. & embedded figures is at http://www.roe.ac.uk/~cje/ngc3109.ps.gz
arxiv created 2006/12/05 · openalex publication_date 2007/04/17 · arxiv updated 2011/02/11 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We have obtained multiobject spectroscopy of luminous blue supergiants in NGC 3109, a galaxy at the periphery of the Local Group at ~1.3 Mpc. We present a detailed catalog including finding charts, V and I magnitudes, spectral classifications, and stellar radial velocities. The radial velocities are seen to trace the rotation curves obtained from studies of the H I gas. From quantitative analysis of eight B-type supergiants we find a mean oxygen abundance of 12 + log(O/H) = 7.76 ± 0.07 (1 σ systematic uncertainty), with a median result of 7.8. Given its distance, we highlight NGC 3109 as the ideal example of a low-metallicity, dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxy for observations with the next generation of ground-based extremely large telescopes.