CCD photometry in the region of NGC 6994 : the remains of an old open cluster

We present the results of BV(RI)KC CCD photometry down to V=21 mag in the region of NGC 6994. To our knowledge, no photometry has previously been reported for this object and we find evidences that it is a poor and sparse old open cluster, with a minimum angular diameter of 9 arcmin, i.e. larger tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Bassino, Lilia Patricia, Waldhausen, S., Martínez, R. E.
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2000
Country:Argentina
Institution:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repository:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/37078
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/37078
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Open clusters
NGC 6994 (galaxia)
Photometry
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Description
Summary:We present the results of BV(RI)KC CCD photometry down to V=21 mag in the region of NGC 6994. To our knowledge, no photometry has previously been reported for this object and we find evidences that it is a poor and sparse old open cluster, with a minimum angular diameter of 9 arcmin, i.e. larger than the 3 arcmin originally assigned to it. We obtain a color excess EB-V = 0.07 +/- 0.02 mag by means of the BVIC technique. Based on the theoretical isochrones from \cite{van85} that are in better agreement with our data, we estimate for this cluster a distance from the Sun of 620 pc (V0-MV = 9 +/- 0.25 mag) and an age lying within the range of 2 - 3 Gyr, adopting solar metallicity. Thus, the corresponding cluster's Galactocentric distance is 8.1 kpc and is placed at about 350 pc below the Galactic plane. According to these results, NGC 6994 belongs to the old open cluster population located in the outer disk and at large distances from the Galactic plane, and must have suffered significant individual dynamical evolution, resulting in mass segregation and evaporation of low mass stars.