Far-Ultraviolet Imaging of the Globular Cluster NGC 6681 with WFPC2
Abstract
We have imagined the globular cluster NGC 6681 in the far-UV and visible with Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Our far-UV images show a sparsely populated and fully resolved central region, and we detect 122 stars. The far-UV to visible color-magnitude diagram shows a well-defined horizontal branch with no evidence for hot, more evolved descendants. We find one hot horizontal-branch star significantly below the model zero-age horizontal branch, but the rest are consistent with evolutionary models within uncertainties in calibration, distance, and reddening. The center of the cluster harbors two luminous blue stragglers. Our far-UV images graphically confirm that there is no steep density gradient at small radii among the horizontal-branch stars of this post-core-collapse cluster and show no evidence for significant color gradients.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 1994
- DOI:
- 10.1086/187593
- Bibcode:
- 1994ApJ...435L..55W
- Keywords:
-
- Color-Magnitude Diagram;
- Globular Clusters;
- Stellar Evolution;
- Ultraviolet Photometry;
- Visible Spectrum;
- Horizontal Branch Stars;
- Hubble Space Telescope;
- Stellar Color;
- Astronomy