Reddening and Distance of the Local Group Starburst Galaxy IC 10
  We estimate the reddening and distance of the nearest starburst galaxy IC 10
using deep near infrared $JHK_{S}$ photometry obtained with the Multi-Object
InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS) on the Subaru telescope. We estimate
the foreground reddening toward IC 10 using $UBV$ photometry of IC 10 from the
Local Group Survey, obtaining $E(B-V)=0.52\pm 0.04$ mag. We derive the total
reddening including the internal reddening, $E(B-V)=0.98\pm 0.06$ mag, using
$UBV$ photometry of early-type stars in IC 10 and comparing $JHK_{S}$
photometry of red giant branch stars in IC 10 and the SMC. Using the 2MASS
point source catalog of 20 Galactic globular clusters, we derive a relation
between the metallicity [Fe/H]$_{CG97}$ and the slope of the red giant branch
in the $K_{S}- (J-K_{S})$ color-magnitude diagram. The mean metallicity of the
red giant branch stars in IC 10 is estimated to be
[Fe/H]$_{CG97}=-1.08\pm0.28$. The magnitude of the tip of the red giant branch
(TRGB) of IC 10 in the $K_{S}$ band is measured to be
$K_{S,TRGB}=18.28\pm0.01$. Based on the TRGB method, we estimate the distance
modulus of IC 10 to be $(m-M)_{0}=24.27\pm0.03{\rm (random)}\pm0.18{\rm
(systematic)}$, corresponding to the distance of $d=715\pm10\pm60$ kpc. This
confirms that IC 10 is a member of the Local Group.
