The Hipparcos I-band calibration of horizontal-branch red clump giants as standard candles has lead to controversial results for the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). In an attempt to properly ascertain the corrections for interstellar extinction and clump age and metallicity, we analyze new multiwavelength luminosity functions of the LMC red clump. Our photometry dataset in the K-b...

We present calibration of the mean I-band brightness of red clump stars on metallic-ity. Red clump stars were proposed to be a very attractive standard candle for distance determination. The calibration is based on 218 nearby red giant stars whose high quality spectra allowed to determine accurate individual metal abundances. High quality par-allaxes (σπ/π < 10%) and photometry of these very br...

We present an empirical test indicating that the mean I-band magnitude of the red clump stars, used as the standard candle in the recent distance determinations to the Magellanic Clouds and other objects, is age independent for intermediate age (2−10 Gyr) stars. Fifteen star clusters of age ≈ 1. were observed and their color-magnitude diagrams are presented. The mean I-band brightness of the re...

We present an empirical test indicating that the mean I-band magnitude of the red clump stars, used as the standard candle in the recent distance determinations to the Magellanic Clouds and other objects, is age independent for intermediate age (2−10 Gyr) stars. Fifteen star clusters of age ≈ 1. were observed and their color-magnitude diagrams are presented. The mean I-band brightness of the re...

We show that the luminosity dependence of the red clump stars on age and metallicity can cause a difference of up to ∼ <0.6 mag in the mean absolute I magnitude of the red clump between different stellar populations. We show that this effect may resolve the apparent ≈0.4 mag discrepancy between red clump-derived distance moduli to the Magellanic Clouds and those from, e.g., Cepheid variables. T...

We examine the morphology of the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) for core helium-burning (red clump) stars to test the recent suggestion by Zaritsky & Lin (1997) that an extension of the red clump in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) toward brighter magnitudes is due to an intervening population of stars that is responsible for a significant fraction of the observed microlensing toward the LMC. Us...

The movements, abundance, age composition and growth of bass, Dicentrarchus labrax (L.), in the Severn Estuary and inner Bristol Channel have been described from regular samples offish taken from power-station intake screens between 1972 and 1977. Bass began to move into the estuary during late August or September and reached peak abundance between September and early November. The tendency for...

The ARAUCARIA project: Deep near-infrared survey of nearby galaxies. I. The distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud from K-band photometry of red clump stars ABSTRACT We have obtained deep imaging in the near-infrared J and K bands for 2 nearby fields in the bar of the LMC with the ESO NTT telescope, under exquisite seeing conditions. The K, J-K color-magnitude diagrams constructed from these da...

There are lines of evidence suggesting that some of the observed microlensing events in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are caused by ordinary star lenses as opposed to dark MACHOs in the Galactic halo. Efficient lensing by ordinary stars generally requires the presence of one or more additional concentrations of stars along the line of sight to the LMC disk. If such a populat...

Based on the results of detailed population synthesis models, Girardi et al. (1998) recently claimed that the clump of red giants in the colour–magnitude diagram (CMD) of composite stellar populations should present an extension to lower luminosities, which goes down to about 0.4 mag below the main clump. This feature is made of stars just massive enough for having ignited helium in nondegenera...