Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor Astrometric Parallaxesfor Three Dwarf Novae: SS Aurigae, SS Cygni, and U Geminorum

We report astrometric parallaxes for three well-known dwarf novae obtained using the Fine Guidance Sensors on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We found a parallax for SS Aurigae of π=5.00+/-0.64 mas, for SS Cygni we found π=6.02+/-0.46 mas, and for U Geminorum we obtained π=10.37+/-0.50 mas. These represent the first true trigonometric parallaxes of any dwarf novae. We briefly compare these results with previous distance estimates. This program demonstrates that with a very modest amount of HST observing time, the Fine Guidance Sensors can deliver parallaxes with sub-milliarcsecond precision.

Based partially on observations obtained with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m telescope, which is owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium.