Is the Hogg\,12-NGC\,3590 pair a new open cluster binary system?

A.E. PIATTI, J.J. CLARIÁ, A.V. AHUMADA

bol. asoc. astron. argentina

Claria,J.J., Alonso, V., Piatti, A.E.

Año: 2011 vol. 53 p. 149 - 152

0571–3285

Based on CCD UBVI$_{KC}$ images obtained at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO, Chile) and on morphological criteria, as well as on the stellar density in the region, we confirm that Hogg,12 is a genuine open cluster (OC) separated in the sky from NGC,3590 by scarcely 3.6 pc. The colour-magnitude diagrams of Hogg,12, cleaned from field star contamination, reveal that this is a solar metal content cluster, affected by $E(B-V)$ = 0.40 $pm$ 0.05, located at a heliocentric distance $d$ = 2.0 $pm$ 0.5 kpc, and of an age similar to that of NGC,3590. Evidence that these two objects form an OC binary system is presented. A detailed version of this work can be seen in PASP, 122, 516 (2010).