We have obtained deep near-infrared images in J and K filters of four fields in the Sculptor Group spiral galaxy NGC 247 with the ESO VLT and Infrared Spectrometer and Array Camera. For a sample of 10 Cepheids in these fields, previously discovered by García-Varela et al. from optical wide-field images, we have determined mean J and K magnitudes and have constructed the period-luminosity (PL) relations in these bands. Using the near-infrared PL relations together with those in the optical V and I bands, we have determined a true distance modulus for NGC 247 of 27.64 mag, with a random uncertainty of ±2% and a systematic uncertainty of ∼4% which is dominated by the effect of unresolved stars on the Cepheid photometry. The mean reddening affecting the NGC 247 Cepheids of E(B − V ) = 0.18 ± 0.02 mag is mostly produced in the host galaxy itself and is significantly higher than what was found in the previous optical Cepheid studies in NGC 247 of our own group, and Madore et al., leading to a 7% decrease in the previous optical Cepheid distance. As in other studies of our project, the distance modulus of NGC 247 we report is tied to an assumed Large Magellanic Cloud distance modulus of 18.50. Comparison with other distance measurements to NGC 247 shows that the present IR-based Cepheid distance is the most accurate among these determinations. With a distance of 3.4 Mpc, NGC 247 is about 1.5 Mpc more distant than NGC 55 and NGC 300, two other Sculptor Group spirals analyzed before with the same technique by our group.

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We present L-band spectra of the Be stars γ Cas, f Per, 28 Tau, θ CrB, 66 Oph, o Her, and 28 Cyg, obtained through use of the CID-InSb spectrograph with the 2.1-m telescope at OAN/UNAM San Pedro Martir Observatory. This is the first report of L-band spectra of o Her and θ CrB, and of the data obtained with this spectrograph. We obtain flux ratios of hydrogen lines for these stars, finding that they have optically thin envelopes, except by 66 Oph and θ CrB, which do not show evidence of a circumstellar disk. γ Cas and f Per have flux ratio values of hydrogen lines closer to the optically thick case than the other stars. We use the line flux ratio diagram and optical spectra reported in the literature to study the life cycles of the disks. We find clear evidence of the dissipating process of the envelopes of 66 Oph and 28 Cyg, i.e., they are decaying stars. 28 Tau seems to have passed by a similar process. γ Cas and f Per are stable stars because their circumstellar disks do not show notorious changes for many years. Finally, the stars in a build-up phase, whose envelopes are generated after a decaying phase or for the first time, have not yet been observed in the L-band. It would be useful to monitor more Be stars to observe this class of stars that probably change from a very tenuous envelope to an optically thick circumstellar disk. The line flux ratio diagram seems to confirm that late Be stars have more tenuous disks than early-type Be stars, as they tend to be separated at the left bottom and the top right parts of the diagram, respectively. Larger samples of Be stars are needed to confirm this hypothesis through a statistical analysis.

The universality and linearity of the Leavitt law are hypotheses commonly adopted in studies of galaxy distances using Cepheid variables as standard candles. In order to test these hypotheses, we obtain slopes of the Leavitt law using linear regressions of fundamental-mode Cepheids observed by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment project in the Magellanic Clouds. We find that the slopes in V I-bands and in the Wesenheit index behave exponentially, indicating non-linearity. We also find that the slopes obtained using long-period Cepheids can be considered as universal in the V I-bands, but not in the Wesenheit index.

Context. Optical and infrared variability surveys produce a large number of high quality light curves. Statistical pattern recognition methods have provided competitive solutions for variable star classification at a relatively low computational cost. In order to perform supervised classification, a set of features is proposed and used to train an automatic classification system. Quantities related to the magnitude density of the light curves and their Fourier coefficients have been chosen as features in previous studies. However, some of these features are not robust to the presence of outliers and the calculation of Fourier coefficients is computationally expensive for large data sets. Aims. We propose and evaluate the performance of a new robust set of features using supervised classifiers in order to look for new Be star candidates in the OGLE-IV Gaia south ecliptic pole field. Methods. We calculated the proposed set of features on six types of variable stars and also on a set of Be star candidates reported in the literature. We evaluated the performance of these features using classification trees and random forests along with the K-nearest neighbours, support vector machines, and gradient boosted trees methods. We tuned the classifiers with a 10-fold cross-validation and grid search. We then validated the performance of the best classifier on a set of OGLE-IV light curves and applied this to find new Be star candidates. Results. The random forest classifier outperformed the others. By using the random forest classifier and colours criteria we found 50 Be star candidates in the direction of the Gaia south ecliptic pole field, four of which have infrared colours that are consistent with Herbig Ae/Be stars. Conclusions. Supervised methods are very useful in order to obtain preliminary samples of variable stars extracted from large databases. As usual, the stars classified as Be stars candidates must be checked for the colours and spectroscopic characteristics expected for them.