A near-infrared variable star survey in the Magellanic Clouds: The Small Magellanic Cloud data

Abstract

A very long-term near-infrared variable star survey towards the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC) was carried out using the 1.4 m InfraRed Survey Facility at the South African Astronomical Observatory. This project was initiated in 2000 December in the LMC, and in 2001 July in the SMC. Since then an area of 3 deg2 along the bar in the LMC and an area of 1 deg2 in the central part of the SMC have been repeatedly observed. This survey is ongoing, but results obtained with data taken until 2017 December are reported in this paper. Over more than 15 yr we have observed the two survey areas more than one hundred times. This is the first survey that provides near-infrared time-series data with such a long time baseline and on such a large scale. This paper describes the observations in the SMC and publishes a point source photometric catalogue, a variable source catalogue, and time-series data.