VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV): Halfway Status and Results
astro-ph.IM
/ Authors
Maren Hempel, Dante Minniti, István Dékány, Roberto K. Saito, Philip W. Lucas, Jim Emerson, Andrea V. Ahumada, Suzanne Aigrain, Maria Victoria Alonso, Javier Alonso-García
and 82 more authors
Eduardo B. Amôres, Rodolfo Angeloni, Julia Arias, Reba Bandyopadhyay, Rodolfo H. Barbá, Beatriz Barbuy, Gustavo Baume, Juan Carlos Beamin, Luigi Bedin, Eduardo Bica, Jordanka Borissova, Leonardo Bronfman, Giovanni Carraro, Márcio Catelan, Juan J. Clariá, Carlos Contreras, Nicholas Cross, Christopher Davis, Richard de Grijs, Janet E. Drew, Cecilia Fariña, Carlos Feinstein
/ Abstract
The VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) survey is one of six public ESO surveys, and is now in its 4th year of observing. Although far from being complete, the VVV survey has already delivered many results, some directly connected to the intended science goals (detection of variables stars, microlensing events, new star clusters), others concerning more exotic objects, e.g. novae. Now, at the end of the fourth observing period, and comprising roughly 50% of the proposed observations, the actual status of the survey, as well some of the results based on the VVV data, are presented.