The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. BVI Maps of Dense Stellar Regions. II. The Large Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This paper provides detailed BVI photometric maps and astrometry for over 7 million stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, derived from the OGLE microlensing project, aiding astronomical research.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive BVI photometric maps of the LMC's central regions, including color-magnitude diagrams for 26 fields, with data quality assessment.

Findings

High-precision photometric and astrometric data for 7 million stars

Color-magnitude diagrams for all observed fields

Accessible data archive for the astronomical community

Abstract

We present the BVI photometric maps of the Large Magellanic Cloud. They contain BVI photometry and astrometry of more than 7 million stars from the central parts of the LMC. The data were collected during the second phase of the OGLE microlensing project. We discuss the accuracy of the data and present color-magnitude diagrams of all 26 fields observed by OGLE in the LMC. The BVI maps of the LMC are accessible electronically for the astronomical community from the OGLE Internet archive.