A&A Supplement series, Vol. 122, May I 1997, 463-470
Received January 11; accepted July 19, 1996
W.E. Kunkel
, M.J. Irwin
, - S. Demers
Send offprint request: W.E. Kunkel
The Observatories of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, La Serena, Chile
Royal Greenwich Observatory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0EZ, UK
Département de Physique and Observatoire du mont Mégantic
Université de Montréal, Montréal, H3C 3J7 Canada
We present the current status of our ongoing cool carbon star survey in the
halo of the Magellanic Clouds. Candidate cool carbon stars were identified
from APM measures of pairs of UK Schmidt Telescope 
and R
survey plates. Intermediate resolution spectroscopy on the duPont Telescope,
Las Campanas, was used to simultaneously verify the nature of the
candidates, late M-type giants or AGB carbon stars, and to derive their
radial velocity. Coordinates, finding charts and radial velocity data for
392 spectroscopically identified cool carbon stars distributed out to
angular distances of 10 degrees from the Cloud optical centres are given.
Radial velocities were also obtained for 133 known carbon stars in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, in the inter-Cloud region, in the wing of the Small
Magellanic Cloud and in a few SMC star clusters. These intermediate-age
carbon stars define ideal kinematic test particles to investigate recent
dynamical interactions between the Galaxy-LMC-SMC system and in particular
the origin of the morphological disturbances seen in the SMC and parts of
the LMC, the origin of the Magellanic Stream and the total mass of the LMC.
keywords: galaxies: Magellanic Clouds -- stars: carbon -- technique: radial velocities