Color-magnitude diagrams and ages of two young Magellanic Cloud clusters.
Abstract
The principal aim of the paper is to determine the ages of two Large Magellanic Cloud star clusters, NGC 2058 and NGC 2065. Photoelectric and photographic photometry was used to obtain color-magnitude diagrams of both clusters and a nearby star field. A grid of evolutionary tracks was computed for masses bracketing those of the cluster giants. Both the red-giant distribution and the main-sequence termination were compared to the models, and yielded an age of 120 million yr for both clusters. The field stars were found to be composed of a young population of stars with the same age as the clusters and an older population with an age of about one billion yr. It is concluded that reliable cluster ages can be obtained without requiring photometry faint enough to reach the unevolved main sequence.
- Publication:
-
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Pub Date:
- December 1982
- DOI:
- 10.1086/131081
- Bibcode:
- 1982PASP...94..894F
- Keywords:
-
- Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram;
- Magellanic Clouds;
- Star Clusters;
- Stellar Color;
- Stellar Evolution;
- Stellar Magnitude;
- Astronomical Photography;
- Electrophotometers;
- Main Sequence Stars;
- Red Giant Stars;
- Stellar Models;
- Stellar Spectrophotometry;
- Astrophysics