Post-Hipparcos Cosmic Candles

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Hipparcos: A New Basis for Calibrating Distance Indicators

   • Catherine Turon

   Pages 1-16

3. Distance Determination with Cepheid Variables

   • Nial R. Tanvir

   Pages 17-35

4. Absolute Magnitudes Derived Using the Statistical Parallax Method

   • Andrew C. Layden

   Pages 37-52

5. The RR Lyrae Distance Scale

   • Piotr Popowski, Andrew Gould

   Pages 53-73

6. Mira Distances and Their Use

   • Michael Feast, Patricia Whitelock

   Pages 75-87

7. Distances and Ages of Globular Clusters Using Hipparcos Parallaxes of Local Subdwarfs

   • Raffaele G. Gratton, Eugenio Carretta, Gisella Clementini

   Pages 89-110

8. Globular Cluster Distance Determinations

   • Brian Chaboyer

   Pages 111-124

9. The Distances of the Magellanic Clouds

   • Alistair R. Walker

   Pages 125-144

10. Helium Core Flash and TIP of The Red Giant Branch Distances

    • Barry F. Madore, Wendy L. Freedman

    Pages 145-160

11. Distances from the Planetary Nebulae Luminosity Function

    • Roberto H. Mendez

    Pages 161-180

12. Distances from Surface Brightness Fluctuations

    • John P. Blakeslee, Edward A. Ajhar, John L. Tonry

    Pages 181-202

13. Distances from the Correlation Between Galaxy Luminosities and Rotation Rates

    • R. Brent Tully

    Pages 203-223

14. Distance Scale from Supernovae

    • F. Duccio Macchetto, Nino Panagia

    Pages 225-245

15. The Contribution of Microlensing Surveys to the Distance Scale

    • Jean Philippe Beaulieu, Willem Jan De Wit

    Pages 247-268

16. Stellar Evolution and Standard Candles

    • Vittorio Castellani

    Pages 269-284

In May 1976, when one of us was temporarily associated with Stras­ bourg Observatory for lecturing on distance determination methods (Heck 1978), Pierre Lacroute - then in his last year as Director there - mod­ estly requested comments on a project he had been cherishing for quite a few years, and which he had been presenting to visitors and colleagues: an astrometric satellite. His persuasiveness and persistence won support from the scientific com­ munity, from the French space agency CNES and from the European Space Agency (ESA): the Hipparcos satellite was born. It was fitting that Lacroute lived long enough after his retirement to attend the launch of his brainchild in 1989 and to see it successfully operational. He knew however he would not enjoy the completion of this long and ambitious mission (he passed away on 14 January 1993, a few days before reaching the age of 87). In May 1997, in the prestigious setting of San Giorgio :Maggiore in Venice, ESA organized a symposium celebrating the presentation of the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogues. That conference signalled also the re­ lease of the first scientific results based at least partially on Hipparcos data. An impressive proceedings volume (Battrick 1997) of more than nine hundred pages, gathering together almost two hundred contributions, gave evidence of numerous studies in progress, in addition to papers starting to appear in the classical journals. The well-maintained ESA Hipparcos web site (http://astro. estec. esa.

• Hipparcos catalog
• Supernova
• Universe
• galaxies
• galaxy
• planet
• stars
• stellar evolution

`Post-Hipparcos Cosmic Candles is an excellent overview of cosmic distance scales.'
Thomas Barnes

• Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, France

  A. Heck

• Observatoire Astronomico di Capodimonte-Napoli, Italy

  F. Caputo

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