Science

The panel to the left shows a sample color-magnitude diagram from a single field in each of many of the Local Group galaxies. As is well known, these demonstrate a wide variety of different color-magnitude diagram morphologies indication a range of different star formation histories within Local Group galaxies.

We are working on several science projects using our extended dataset:

• differential comparison of luminosity functions as a probe for variations in the initial mass functions in Milky Way neighbors
• differential comparisons of main sequence turnoffs as a probe for differences in the ages of the oldest stars in Milky Way neighbors
• variations of star formation history across the LMC and SMC
• identification of LBV candidates using H$\alpha$ photometry
• a comprehensive analysis of star formation histories of all Local Group galaxies using a homogeneous data set and homogeneous analysis