Astrometry of red supergiant VY Canis Majoris with VERA
Abstract
We present observational results on the red supergiant VY Canis Majoris with VERA. We have observed 22 GHz H2O masers and 43 GHz SiO masers (v=1 and 2 J=1-0) around VY CMa for 13 months. We succesfully detected a parallax of 0.87 ± 0.08 mas, corresponding to the distance of 1.15 +0.10−0.09 kpc using H2O masers. As the result of phase-referencing analyses, we have measured absolute positions for both H2O masers and SiO masers. The H2O maser features show rapid expansion off the central star.
- Publication:
-
A Giant Step: from Milli- to Micro-arcsecond Astrometry
- Pub Date:
- July 2008
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921308019017
- Bibcode:
- 2008IAUS..248..192C
- Keywords:
-
- astrometry;
- masers;
- stars: distances;
- supergiants;
- stars: individual (VY CMa)