AAS 204th Meeting, June 2004
Session 40 Galaxies
Poster, Tuesday, June 1, 2004, 10:00am-7:00pm, Ballroom

## [40.11] The Luminosity-Metallicity Relationship for Dwarf Star-Forming Galaxies

J. C. Lee (Steward Observatory, University of Arizona), J. Melbourne (UCO/Lick Observatory, UC Santa Cruz), J. J. Salzer (Astronomy Department,Wesleyan University)

We report results from the second in a series of follow-up nebular abundance studies of emission-line galaxies found in the KPNO International Spectroscopic Survey (KISS). Galaxies with 12 + log(0/H) \lesssim 8.2 (estimated from the coarse empirical method for calculating metal abundances described in Melbourne & Salzer (2002)) were selected for observation with the MMT Blue Channel Spectrograph. Spectra of 14 galaxies, which cover the full optical region from [OII]\lambda\lambda3727,3729 to beyond [SII]\lambda\lambda6717,6731, are presented, and abundance ratios of N, O, Ne, S, and Ar have been computed. Oxygen abundances determined through the direct electron temperature (Te) method confirm that all of the galaxies are metal-poor with 7.61 \leq 12 + log(O/H) \leq 8.32. By using these abundances in conjunction with other Te-based measurements from the literature, we demonstrate that the star-forming dwarf galaxies in KISS, along with the more specific class of Blue Compact Dwarfs (BCDs), follow the same metallicity-luminosity relationship as ones which have been previously determined for dwarf irregular (dIrr) galaxies.

The KISS project is funded through grants from the NSF to JJS (AST 95-53020 & 00-71114). JCL also acknowledges financial support from NASA (Space Grant Graduate Fellowship) and from the NSF (AST-9617826 & AST-0307386).