THE NATURE OF BRIGHT GIANTS IN THE HALO OF NGC-253 AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DISTANCE SCALE

We have used the 3.6 m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) to obtain deep V and I CCD images of a field in the halo of NGC 253. A large number of stellar objects, far in excess of that expected from background galaxies and foreground stars, have been detected fainter than I∼22.5 and V∼24.0, and we identify these as bright giants in the halo of NGC 253. The luminosities of the brightest objects in our field are similar to those of asymptotic giant branch stars in Galactic globular clusters. If these luminous stars are assumed to be similar to the brightest giants in the outer halo of M31, then the distance modulus of NGC 253 is μ0≤26.8. This is slightly lower than the canonical value derived from other distance indicators.