Survey for Transiting Extrasolar Planets in Stellar Systems IV: Variables in the Field of NGC 1245

Abstract

The Survey for Transiting Extrasolar Planets in Stellar Systems (STEPSS) project is a search for planetary transits in open clusters. In this paper, we analyze the STEPSS observations of the open cluster NGC 1245 to determine the variable star content of the cluster. Out of 6787 stars observed with V < 22, of which ~870 are cluster members, we find 14 stars with clear intrinsic variability that are potential cluster members, and 29 clear variables that are not cluster members. None of these variables have been previously identified. We present light curves, finding charts, and stellar/photometric data on these variable objects. Several of the interacting binaries have estimated distances consistent with the cluster distance determined from isochrone fits to the color magnitude diagram. Four stars at the main sequence turnoff of the cluster have light curves consistent with gamma Doradus variability. If these gamma Doradus candidates are confirmed, they represent the oldest and coolest members of this class of variable discovered to date.

20 pages, 15 figures. Submitted to AJ. PDF version with full-resolution figures at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pepper/ms.pdf

References in corpus (8)

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• Planets in Stellar Clusters Extensive Search. III. A search for transiting planets in the metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791
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• Deep MMT Transit Survey of the Open Cluster M37 I: Observations and Cluster Parameters
• Contact Binaries as Viable Distance Indicators: New, Competitive (V)JHKs Period-Luminosity Relations
• The University of New South Wales Extrasolar Planet Search: a catalogue of variable stars from fields observed 2004--2007
• Improved Variable Star Search in Large Photometric Data Sets -- New Variables in CoRoT Field LRa02 Detected by BEST II
• A Deep Catalog of Variable Stars in a 0.66deg^2 Lupus Field
• Period-Luminosity-Metallicity-Color Relations of Late-type Contact Binaries in the Big Data Era