We present KPNO 4-m and LBT/MODS spectroscopic observations of an H II region in the nearby dwarf irregular galaxy Leo P discovered recently in the Arecibo ALFALFA survey. In both observations, we are able to accurately measure the temperature sensitive [O III] λ4363 line and determine a "direct" oxygen abundance of 12 + log(O/H) = 7.17 ± 0.04. Thus, Leo P is an extremely metal deficient (XMD) galaxy, and, indeed, one of the most metal deficient star-forming galaxies ever observed. For its estimated luminosity, Leo P is consistent with the relationship between luminosity and oxygen abundance seen in nearby dwarf galaxies. Leo P shows normal α element abundance ratios (Ne/O, S/O, and Ar/O) when compared to other XMD galaxies, but elevated N/O, consistent with the "delayed release" hypothesis for N/O abundances. We derive a helium mass fraction of 0.2509 +0.0184 −0.0123 which compares well with the WMAP + BBN prediction of 0.2483 ± 0.0002 for the primordial helium abundance. We suggest that surveys of very low mass galaxies compete well with emission line galaxy surveys for finding XMD galaxies. It is possible that XMD galaxies may be divided into two classes: the relatively rare XMD emission line galaxies which are associated with starbursts triggered by infall of low-metallicity gas and the more common, relatively quiescent XMD galaxies like Leo P, with very low chemical abundances due to their intrinsically small masses.

We present results from ground-based optical imaging of a low-mass dwarf galaxy discovered by the ALFALFA 21-cm H I survey. Broadband (BVR) data obtained with the WIYN 3.5-m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) are used to construct color-magnitude diagrams of the galaxy's stellar population down to V o ∼ 25. We also use narrowband Hα imaging from the KPNO 2.1-m telescope to identify an H II region in the galaxy. We use these data to constrain the distance to the galaxy to be between 1.5 and 2.0 Mpc. This places Leo P within the Local Volume but beyond the Local Group. Its properties are extreme: it is the lowest-mass system known that contains significant amounts of gas and is currently forming stars.

We present kinematic analyses of the 12 galaxies in the "Survey of H I in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs" (SHIELD). We use multi-configuration interferometric observations of the H I 21 cm emission line from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) 22 to produce image cubes at a variety of spatial and spectral resolutions. Both two-and three-dimensional fitting techniques are employed in an attempt to derive inclination-corrected rotation curves for each galaxy. In most cases, the comparable magnitudes of velocity dispersion and projected rotation result in degeneracies that prohibit unambiguous circular velocity solutions. We thus make spatially resolved position-velocity cuts, corrected for inclination using the stellar components, to estimate the circular rotation velocities. We find v circ  30 km s −1 for the entire survey population. Baryonic masses are calculated using singledish H I fluxes from Arecibo and stellar masses derived from HST and Spitzer imaging. Comparison is made with total dynamical masses estimated from the position-velocity analysis. The SHIELD galaxies are then placed on the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation. There exists an empirical threshold rotational velocity, Vrot < 15 km s −1 , below which current observations cannot differentiate coherent rotation from pressure support. The SHIELD galaxies are representative of an important population of galaxies whose properties cannot be described by current models of rotationally dominated galaxy dynamics.

We have derived oxygen abundances for eight galaxies from the Survey for H i in Extremely Low-mass Dwarfs (SHIELD). The SHIELD survey is an ongoing study of very-low-mass galaxies, with M H i between 10 6.5 and 10 7.5 M , that were detected by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey. Hα images from the WIYN 3.5 m telescope show that these eight SHIELD galaxies each possess one or two active star-forming regions, which were targeted with long-slit spectral observations using the Mayall 4 m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. We obtained a direct measurement of the electron temperature by detection of the weak [O iii] λ4363 line in two of the H ii regions. Oxygen abundances for the other H ii regions were estimated using a strong-line method. When the SHIELD galaxies are plotted on a B-band L-Z diagram, they appear to suggest a slightly shallower slope to the relationship than normally seen. However, that offset is systematically reduced when the near-infrared luminosity is used instead. This indicates a different mass-to-light ratio for the galaxies in this sample and we suggest that this may be indicative of differing star formation histories in the lowest luminosity and surface brightness dwarf irregulars.