A More Complete List of YSO Candidates in AFGL 490

AFGL 490 is an embedded cluster of low-mass stars around the high-mass (8-10 M_⊙) star AFGL 490 (Straižys & Laugalys 2008), located within the plane of the Galaxy in the Cam OB1 association. Within this cluster are many young stellar objects (YSOs) emerging from the dust cloud surrounding AFGL 490. A complete list of YSO candidates is useful to compare the cluster's properties to other, older clusters, since much about cluster development is still unknown. This project worked towards developing just such a list. This built upon work done by Gutermuth et al. (2009) and Masiunas et al. (2012), who studied this cluster with Spitzer/IRAC (Infrared Array Camera) and MIPS (Multi-band Imaging Photometer for Spitzer), as well as information from the YSOVAR (YSO VARiability) project (Rebull et al. 2014) which monitored this region with Spitzer/IRAC. The initial YSO list also included cluster members identified by Winston (2020) using the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), Spitzer/IRAC, and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Objects identified as having H-alpha excess (Barentsen 2014) were also investigated.

We collected the literature-identified YSOs, and looked for new potential candidates using H-alpha and IR variability. We then combined data from several optical databases (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System [PanSTARRS], INT Photometric H-Alpha Survey [IPHAS], and Gaia) and IR (Spitzer/IRAC & MIPS, WISE, Herschel/Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer [PACS], Akari, Midcourse Space Experiment [MSX]) data sets. Starting from 517 YSO candidates from the literature or identified anew, each source was analyzed using image inspection, spectral energy distributions, color-color/color-magnitude diagrams and light curves to identify which targets were strong YSO candidates; we narrowed down our final list to 501 candidate YSOs.

This research was made possible through the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP) and was funded by the NASA Astrophysics Data Program.