The DIRECT Project: Catalogs of Stellar Objects in Nearby Galaxies. I. The Central Part of M33

The DIRECT project aims to determine direct distances to two importantgalaxies in the cosmological distance ladder -- M31 and M33 -- using detachedeclipsing binaries (DEBs) and Cepheids. The search for these variables requirestime-series photometry of large areas of the target galaxies and yieldsmagnitudes and positions for tens of thousands of stellar objects, which may beof use to the astronomical community at large. During the first phase of the project, between September 1996 and October1997, we were awarded 95 nights on the F. L. Whipple Observatory 1.2 mtelescope and 36 nights on the Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT 1.3 m telescope to searchfor DEBs and Cepheids in the M31 and M33 galaxies. This paper, the first in ourseries of stellar catalogs, lists the positions, three-color photometry, andvariability indices of 57,581 stars with 14.4 < V < 23.6 in the central part ofM33. The catalog is available from our FTP site atftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/kstanek/DIRECT/star_catalog/M33ABC/Comment: A copy of the paper with full-resolution embedded figures can be retrieved from ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/kstanek/DIRECT/star_catalog/M33ABC/paper.ps.gz . To appear in the February 2001 issue of the Astronomical Journal. v3: Replaced Table 2 with correct version. Included figures inside manuscrip