The long-period Galactic Cepheid RS Puppis III. A geometric distance from HST polarimetric imaging of its light echoes

As one of the most luminous Cepheids in the Milky Way, the 41.5-day RS Puppis is an analog of the long-period Cepheids used to measure extragalactic distances. An accurate distance to this star would therefore help anchor the zero-point of the bright end of the period-luminosity relation. But, at a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAstronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) Vol. 572; pp. A7 - 13
Main Authors Kervella, P., Bond, H. E., Cracraft, M., Szabados, L., Breitfelder, J., Mérand, A., Sparks, W. B., Gallenne, A., Bersier, D., Fouqué, P., Anderson, R. I.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.12.2014
Subjects
Astronomy
Calibration
Cepheid variables
Echoes
Imaging
Instrumentation
Milky Way Galaxy
Parallax
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Summary:As one of the most luminous Cepheids in the Milky Way, the 41.5-day RS Puppis is an analog of the long-period Cepheids used to measure extragalactic distances. An accurate distance to this star would therefore help anchor the zero-point of the bright end of the period-luminosity relation. But, at a distance of about 2 kpc, RS Pup is too far away for measuring a direct trigonometric parallax with a precision of a few percentage points with existing instrumentation. We present new polarimetric imaging of the nebula obtained with HST/ACS. The RS Pup therefore provides an important fiducial for calibrating the systematic uncertainties of the long-period Cepheid distance scale.
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ISSN:0004-6361
1432-0746
DOI:10.1051/0004-6361/201424395