An optical monitoring survey in the nearby dwarf galaxies was carried out with the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope ( INT ) .
55 dwarf galaxies and four isolated globular clusters in the Local Group ( LG ) were observed with the Wide Field Camera ( WFC ) .
The main aims of this survey are to identify the most evolved asymptotic giant branch ( AGB ) stars and red supergiants at the end-point of their evolution based on their pulsational instability , use their distribution over luminosity to reconstruct the star formation history , quantify the dust production and mass loss from modelling the multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions , and relate this to luminosity and radius variations .
In this first of a series of papers , we present the methodology of the variability survey and describe the photometric catalogue of Andromeda I ( And I ) dwarf galaxy as an example of the survey , and discuss the identified long period variable ( LPV ) stars .
We detected 5 581 stars and identified 59 LPV candidates within two half-light radii of the centre of And I .
The amplitudes of these candidates range from 0.2 to 3 mag in the i -band .
75 % of detected sources and 98 % of LPV candidates are detected at mid-infrared wavelengths .
We show evidence for the presence of dust-producing AGB stars in this galaxy including five extreme AGB ( x-AGB ) stars , and model some of their spectral energy distributions .
A distance modulus of 24.41 mag for And I was determined based on the tip of the red giant branch ( RGB ) .
Also , a half-light radius of 3.2 \pm 0.3 arcmin is calculated .