THE CEPHEID DISTANCE TO NGC 0247

We report VRI CCD observations of nine Cepheids in the South Polar (Sculptor) Group spiral galaxy NGC 0247. Periods of these Cepheids range from 20 to 70 days. Over the past 20 years, the brightest Cepheid in our sample, NGC 0247:[MF09] C1, has decreased its period by 6%, faded by 0.8 mag in the V band, and become bluer by 0.23 mag in (V-I). A multiwavelength analysis of the Cepheid data yields a true distance modulus of mu(o) = 27.81 +/- 0.10 mag (3.65 +/- 0.17 Mpc) with a total line-of-sight reddening of E(V-I) = 0.07 +/- 0.04 mag, after adopting an LMC true distance modulus of 18.5 mag and reddening of E(B-V) = 0.10 mag. These results are in excellent agreement with other very recently published (Cepheid and tip of the red giant branch) distances to NGC 0247. Combining both Cepheid data sets gives mu(o) = 27.85 +/- 0.09 mag (3.72 +/- 0.15 Mpc) with E(V-I) = 0.11 +/- 0.03 mag.