A&A Supplement series, Vol. 122, May I 1997, 507-513
Received December 20 1995; accepted August 22, 1996
D. Hatzidimitriou
, B.F. Croke
,
D.H. Morgan
, and R.D. Cannon
Physics Department, University of Crete, P.O.Box 2208, GR 710 03,
Heraklion, Crete, Greece
Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ,
Scotland, UK
Anglo-Australian Observatory, PO Box 296, Epping, NSW 2121,
Australia
We present a radial velocity survey of a sample of the field population
of carbon stars in the outer parts of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). This
first set of results includes radial velocities for 71 carbon stars, with
an individual precision of 
km/s. The mean heliocentric velocity
of the stars (excluding one very high velocity star) is 
km/s
with a velocity dispersion of
km/s. These values drop to 
km/s
and 
km/s respectively, if we exclude the stars belonging
to the Outer Wing.
The velocity distribution does not show the multiple peaks seen in some
samples of Population I objects. The mass of the SMC as inferred
from the above velocity dispersion (without the outer Wing stars)
is 
.
keywords: stars: carbon stars -- galaxies: kinematics -- Magellanic clouds