Kinematics of OB-associations and the new reduction of the Hipparcos data

The proper motions of OB-associations computed using the old (Hipparcos 1997} and new (van Leeuwen 2007) reductions of the Hipparcos data are in a good agreement with each other. The Galactic rotation curve derived from an analysis of line-of-sight velocities and proper motions of OB-associations is almost flat in the 3-kpc neighborhood of the Sun. The angular rotation velocity at the solar distance is Omega_0=31 +/-1 km s-1 kpc-1. The standard deviation of the velocities of OB-associations from the rotation curve is sigma=7.2 km s-1. The distance scale for OB associations (Blaha & Humphreys 1989) should be shortened by 10-20%. The residual velocities of OB-associations calculated for the new and old reductions differ, on average, by 3.5 km s-1. The mean residual velocities of OB-associations in the stellar-gas complexes depend only slightly on the data reduction employed.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Evidence of the Galactic outer ring R1R2' from young open clusters and OB-associations

The distribution of young open clusters in the Galactic plane within 3 kpc from the Sun suggests the existence of the outer ring R1R2' in the Galaxy. The optimum value of the solar position angle with respect to the major axis of the bar, theta_b, providing the best agreement between the distribution of open clusters and model particles is theta_b=35 +/- 10 degrees. The kinematical features obtained for young open clusters and OB-associations with negative Galactocentric radial velocity VR indicate the solar location near the descending segment of the outer ring R2.Comment: 21 pages, 11 fiures, to be published in Astrophysics and Space Science. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.355

Proper identification of RR Lyrae Stars brighter than 12.5 mag

RR Lyrae stars are of great importance for investigations of Galactic structure. However, a complete compendium of all RR-Lyraes in the solar neighbourhood with accurate classifications and coordinates does not exist to this day. Here we present a catalogue of 561 local RR-Lyrae stars V_max less equal 12.5 mag according to the magnitudes given in the Combined General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) and 16 fainter ones. The Tycho2 catalogue contains about 100 RR Lyr stars. However, many objects have inaccurate coordinates in the GCVS, the primary source of variable star information, so that a reliable cross-identification is difficult. We identified RR Lyrae from both catalogues based on an intensive literature search. In dubious cases we carried out photometry of fields to identify the variable. Mennessier and Colome (2002) have published a paper with Tyc2-GCVS identifications, but we found that many of their identifications are wrong. Keywords: astrometry -- Stars: RR Lyrae stars -- Catalogues: Tycho-2 catalogue -- Catalogues: The HST Guide Star Catalogue, Version 1.2 -- Catalogues: Combined General Catalogue of Variable StarsComment: 5 pages with 2 figures; A and A accepted Online-Data are available under http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~gmaint