LPVs in NGC 147 and NGC 185

¹ Department of Astronomy, University of Vienna, Austria
² Nordic Optical Telescope, La Palma, Spain
³ Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University
⁴ Onsala Space Observatory, Sweden

Abstract

We examined the light variations of AGB variables of the two Local Group members NGC 147 and NGC 185. A photometric monitoring in the i-band was carried out with the Nordic Optical Telescope at La Palma over ≈ 2.5 yrs resulting in roughly 35 data points for the period analysis. We found 513 long period variables (LPVs) in NGC 185 and 213 LPVs in NGC 147. Additional single-epoch K_s-band photometry was obtained for 387 (NGC 185, 323 with periods) and 182 (NGC 147, 147 with periods) LPVs, respectively. For a large fraction of these stars we also have an indication of the atmospheric chemistry (carbon- or oxygen-rich) from narrow band photometry (see Nowotny et al. 2003). The resulting K_s − logP diagrams for both systems show a well populated sequence of fundamental mode pulsators (sequence C, cf. Ita et al. 2004). In NGC 185 we also see a number of LPVs pulsating in the first overtone mode (sequence C’). Interestingly, such stars are missing in NGC 147. We speculate that this lack of shorter period variables in NGC 147 could originate from a difference in the star formation history (SFH) of the two galaxies, with NGC 147 containing a smaller population of intermediate-age stars.