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We present a map of the total intrinsic reddening across ~90 deg$^{2}$ of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) derived using optical (ugriz) and near-infrared (IR; YJKs) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of background galaxies. The reddening map is created from a sample of 222,752 early-type galaxies based on the LEPHARE $\chi^{2}$ minimisation SED-fitting routine. We find excellent agreement between the regions of enhanced intrinsic reddening across the central (4x4 deg$^2$) region of the LMC and the morphology of the low-level pervasive dust emission as traced by far-IR emission. In addition, we are able to distinguish smaller, isolated enhancements that are coincident with known star-forming regions and the clustering of young stars observed in morphology maps. The level of reddening associated with the molecular ridge south of 30 Doradus is, however, smaller than in the literature reddening maps. The reduced number of galaxies detected in this region, due to high extinction and crowding, may bias our results towards lower reddening values. Our map is consistent with maps derived from red clump stars and from the analysis of the star formation history across the LMC. This study represents one of the first large-scale categorisations of extragalactic sources behind the LMC and as such we provide the LEPHARE outputs for our full sample of ~2.5 million sources., Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The nearby Magellanic Clouds system covers more than 200 square degrees on the sky. Much of it has been mapped across the electromagnetic spectrum at high angular resolution and sensitivity X-ray (XMM-Newton), UV (UVIT), optical (SMASH), IR (VISTA, WISE, Spitzer, Herschel), radio (ATCA, ASKAP, MeerKAT). This provides us with an excellent dataset to explore the galaxy populations behind the stellar-rich Magellanic Clouds. We seek to identify and characterise AGN via machine learning algorithms on this exquisite data set. Our project focuses not on establishing sequences and distributions of common types of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN), but seeks to identify extreme examples, building on the recent accidental discoveries of unique AGN behind the Magellanic Clouds., Proceedings paper of the IAU symposium "Nuclear Activity in Galaxies Across Cosmic Time" (Ethiopia) accepted to be published under the Cambridge University Press, eds. M. Povic, P. Marziani, J. Masegosa, H. Netzer, S. H. Negu, and S. B. Tessema

We present a comprehensive multi-frequency catalogue of radio sources behind the Large Magellanic Cloud between 0.2 and 20 GHz, gathered from a combination of new and legacy radio continuum surveys. This catalogue covers an area of $\sim$144~deg$^2$ at angular resolutions from 45 arcsec to $\sim$3 arcmin. We find 6434 discrete radio sources in total, of which 3789 are detected at two or more radio frequencies. We estimate the median spectral index ($\alpha$; where $S_{v}\sim\nu^\alpha$) of $\alpha = -0.89 $ and mean of $-0.88 \pm 0.48$ for 3636 sources detected exclusively at two frequencies (0.843 and 1.384 GHz) with similar resolution (FWHM $\sim$40-45 arcsec). The large frequency range of the surveys makes it an effective tool to investigate Gigahertz Peak Spectrum (GPS), Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) and Infrared Faint Radio sources populations within our sample. We find 10 GPS candidates with peak frequencies near 5 GHz, from which we estimate their linear size. 1866 sources from our catalogue are (CSS) candidates with $\alpha 0.5$. We found optical counterparts for 343 of the radio continuum sources, of which 128have a redshift measurement. Finally, we investigate the population of 123 Infrared Faint Radio Sources (IFRSs) found in this study., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present a study of six open clusters (Berkeley 67, King 2, NGC 2420, NGC 2477, NGC 2682 and NGC 6940) using the Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) aboard \textit{ASTROSAT} and \textit{Gaia} EDR3. We used combinations of astrometric, photometric and systematic parameters to train and supervise a machine learning algorithm along with a Gaussian mixture model for the determination of cluster membership. This technique is robust, reproducible and versatile in various cluster environments. In this study, the \textit{Gaia} EDR3 membership catalogues are provided along with classification of the stars as \texttt{members, candidates} and \texttt{field} in the six clusters. We could detect 200--2500 additional members using our method with respect to previous studies, which helped estimate mean space velocities, distances, number of members and core radii. UVIT photometric catalogues, which include blue stragglers, main-sequence and red giants are also provided. From UV--Optical colour-magnitude diagrams, we found that majority of the sources in NGC 2682 and a few in NGC 2420, NGC 2477 and NGC 6940 showed excess UV flux. NGC 2682 images have ten white dwarf detection in far-UV. The far-UV and near-UV images of the massive cluster NGC 2477 have 92 and 576 \texttt{members} respectively, which will be useful to study the UV properties of stars in the extended turn-off and in various evolutionary stages from main-sequence to red clump. Future studies will carry out panchromatic and spectroscopic analysis of noteworthy members detected in this study., 19 figures, 8 tables, submitted in MNRAS, contains additional figures which are not in the published version

We present a map of the total intrinsic reddening across similar or equal to 34 deg(2) of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) derived using optical (ugriz) and near-infrared (IR; YJK(s)) spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of background galaxies. The reddening map is created using a subsample of 29 274 galaxies with low levels of intrinsic reddening based on the LEPHARE chi(2) minimization SED-fitting routine. We find statistically significant enhanced levels of reddening associated with the main body of the SMC compared with regions in the outskirts [Delta E(B - V) similar or equal to 0.3 mag]. A comparison with literature reddening maps of the SMC shows that, after correcting for differences in the volume of the SMC sampled, there is good agreement between our results and maps created using young stars. In contrast, we find significant discrepancies between our results and maps created using old stars or based on longer wavelength far-IR dust emission that could stem from biased samples in the former and uncertainties in the far-IR emissivity and the optical properties of the dust grains in the latter. This study represents one of the first large-scale categorizations of extragalactic sources behind the SMC and as such we provide the LEPHARE outputs for our full sample of similar to 500 000 sources. © 2020 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society, This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 682115). SR acknowledges support from the ERC consolidator grant project STARKEY(grant agreement no. 615604). YC acknowledges support from NSF grant AST 1655677. DMDacknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities and FEDER funds through grant AYA2016-81065-C2-2, the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the 'Centre of Excellence Severo Ochoa' award for the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (SEV-2017-0709) and from grant PGC2018-095049B-C21. RRM acknowledges partial support from project BASAL AFB-170002 as well as FONDECYT project no. 1170364. SS acknowledges support from the Science and Engineering Research Board, India through a Ramanujan Fellowship. The authors would like to thank the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit (CASU) and theWide Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) in Edinburgh for providing the necessary data products under the support of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in theU.K. The authorswould also like to thank K. Gordon and J. Roman-Duval for discussions related to the use of the HERITAGE dust maps. The authors would like to extend their gratitude to the referee, Geoff Clayton, who provided several comments that improved the manuscript. This study was based on observations made with VISTA at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 179.B-2003. This project used data obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which was constructed by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the STFC, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo 'a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico and the Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, Fermi NationalAccelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois atUrbanaChampaign, the Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, the Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, and Texas A&M University. Based on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO Prop. ID: 2013A-0411 and 2013B-0440; PI: Nidever), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. Finally, this project has made extensive use of the Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables (TOPCAT) software package (Taylor 2005) as well as the following open-source PYTHON packages: Astropy (The Astropy Collaboration 2018), MATPLOTLIB (Hunter 2007), NUMPY (Oliphant 2015), PANDAS (McKinney 2010), and SCIPY (Virtanen et al. 2020).

We present two new radio continuum images from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) survey in the direction of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). These images are part of the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) Early Science Project (ESP) survey of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. The two new source lists produced from these images contain radio continuum sources observed at 960 MHz (4489 sources) and 1320 MHz (5954 sources) with a bandwidth of 192 MHz and beam sizes of 30.0"x30.0" and 16.3"x15.1", respectively. The median Root Mean Squared (RMS) noise values are 186$\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ (960 MHz) and 165$\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ (1320 MHz). To create point source catalogues, we use these two source lists, together with the previously published Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST) and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) point source catalogues to estimate spectral indices for the whole population of radio point sources found in the survey region. Combining our ASKAP catalogues with these radio continuum surveys, we found 7736 point-like sources in common over an area of 30 deg$^2$. In addition, we report the detection of two new, low surface brightness supernova remnant candidates in the SMC. The high sensitivity of the new ASKAP ESP survey also enabled us to detect the bright end of the SMC planetary nebula sample, with 22 out of 102 optically known planetary nebulae showing point-like radio continuum emission. Lastly, we present several morphologically interesting background radio galaxies., Comment: 18 pages, 23 figues, 9 tables, Accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We present a method to map the total intrinsic reddening of a foreground extinguishing medium via the analysis of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of background galaxies. In this pilot study, we implement this technique in two distinct regions of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) - the bar and the southern outskirts - using a combination of optical and near-infrared $ugrizYJK_{\mathrm{s}}$ broadband imaging. We adopt the LePhare $\chi^{2}$-minimisation SED-fitting routine and various samples of galaxies and/or quasi-stellar objects to investigate the intrinsic reddening. We find that only when we construct reddening maps using objects classified as galaxies with low levels of intrinsic reddening (i.e. ellipticals/lenticulars and early-type spirals), the resultant maps are consistent with previous literature determinations i.e. the intrinsic reddening of the SMC bar is higher than that in the outer environs. We employ two sets of galaxy templates - one theoretical and one empirical - to test for template dependencies in the resulting reddening maps and find that the theoretical templates imply systematically higher reddening values by up to 0.20 mag in $E(B-V)$. A comparison with previous reddening maps, based on the stellar components of the SMC, typically shows reasonable agreement. There is, however, significant variation amongst the literature reddening maps as to the level of intrinsic reddening associated with the bar. Thus, it is difficult to unambiguously state that instances of significant discrepancies are the result of appreciable levels of dust not accounted for in some literature reddening maps or whether they reflect issues with our adopted methodology., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 21 pages, 13 figures and 4 tables