An Examination of Main Sequence Stars within the Instability Strip for Open Clusters Over a Range of Ages
Abstract
We are conducting a study of 14 open clusters which have an approximate age range of 7 to 9 Gyr. The observations for this project were taken with the 1.8-m telescope at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory using a y filter and with the 0.4-m David Derrick telescope of the Orson Pratt Observatory using a set of VRI filters. The exposure lengths were optimized for main sequence stars in the A-F range in order to bracket the instability strip. We plan to correlate the cluster ages with 1) the number of pulsating variables in the instability strip, 2) the percentage of variable stars in the instability strip, and 3) the amplitude of the pulsations. We will present preliminary results for 4 of the 14 clusters: NGC 6811, NGC 6940, NGC 7142, and NGC 7160.
We wish to thank the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory for access to the 1.8-m telescope. We also acknowledge funding from an AAS Small Research Grant that helped make the telescope time at DAO possible.- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AAS...205.2203R