Hubble space telescope fine guidance sensor astrometric parallaxes for three dwarf novae: SS Aurigae, SS Cygni, and U Geminorum

Thomas E. Harrison, Bernard J. McNamara, Paula Szkody, Barbara E. McArthur, G. F. Benedict, Arnold R. Klemola, Ronald L. Gilliland

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

85 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report astrometric parallaxes for three well-known dwarf novae obtained using the Fine Guidance Sensors on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We found a parallax for SS Aurigae of π = 5.00 ± 0.64 mas, for SS Cygni we found π = 6.02 ± 0.46 mas, and for U Geminorum we obtained π = 10.37 ± 0.50 mas. These represent the first true trigonometric parallaxes of any dwarf novae. We briefly compare these results with previous distance estimates. This program demonstrates that with a very modest amount of HST observing time, the Fine Guidance Sensors can deliver parallaxes with sub-milliarcsecond precision.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)L93-L96
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume515
Issue number2 PART 2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 20 1999

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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