A near infrared variable star survey in the Magellanic Clouds: The Small Magellanic Cloud data

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive near-infrared variable star survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud, providing long-term time-series data, catalogues, and insights into variable stars over a 15-year period.

Contribution

It is the first large-scale, long-term near-infrared survey of the SMC, offering extensive time-series data and catalogues for variable star research.

Findings

Over 100 observations per source over 15 years

First long-term near-infrared variability survey of the SMC

Provides extensive photometric and variable star catalogues

Abstract

A very long term near-infrared variable star survey towards the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds was carried out using the 1.4m InfraRed Survey Facility at the South African Astronomical Observatory. This project was initiated in December 2000 in the LMC, and in July 2001 in the SMC. Since then an area of 3 square degrees along the bar in the LMC and an area of 1 square degree in the central part of the SMC have been repeatedly observed. This survey is ongoing, but results obtained with data taken until December 2017 are reported in this paper. Over more than 15 years we have observed the two survey areas more than one hundred times. This is the first survey that provides near-infrared time-series data with such a long time baseline and on such a large scale. This paper describes the observations in the SMC and publishes a point source photometric catalogue, a variable source catalogue, and time-series data.