Are the Youngsters Home? A Search for Young Clusters in the Merger Remnant NGC 2655

We are studying star clusters in NGC 2655, a shell elliptical galaxy that is likely a post-merger remnant and may yet still be forming new stars. Our project consists of two parts. The first goal is to put together a pipeline for taking raw images and transforming them into a final calibrated set of data. The algorithms we have developed will be useful for all astronomers who use the Large Binocular Cameras (LBCs) at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) located on Mount Graham in Arizona. The LBCs are two widefield f/1.45 cameras each mounted at prime focus for each mirror of the LBT. The LBCs each have a 23' x 25' field of view (FOV) and optimized for 0.3-0.6 microns on the left mirror and 0.5-1.0 microns on the right mirror.The second goal is to effectively take a population census of young star clusters (YSCs) and Globular Clusters (GCs) in a galaxy undergoing a transformation from two spiral galaxies into an elliptical galaxy. NGC 2655 may be a future version of our Milky Way after it collides and merges with the Andromeda Galaxy. Stars are born in groups and clusters. When mergers occur between spiral galaxies, vast reservoirs of gas are turned into stars and these stars all form together in large clusters with masses ranging from 10^{4}-10^{7} M_{⊙}. As seen in major mergers like the Antennae and NGC 3256, thousands of such star clusters are formed during and after a galaxy merger. However, NGC 2655 is clearly an elliptical galaxy with strong indications of having undergone a recent major merger. Thus, it represents a transition object, allowing us to study both the GC and possibly YSC populations. Although similar studies have been undertaken for a handful of other similar transition objects (i.e. NGC 1316), they have all been done using imagers with rather small FOVs (∼ 2-6'). The large FOV of the LBCs allow us to capture not only the entire galaxy, but a large region surrounding the galaxy, making it possible to obtain a better census of GCs and YSCs without relying on extrapolating the properties from small FOVs.