Sobre la naturaleza de cinco candidatos a cúmulos abiertos ubicados próximos a la dirección del centro galáctico

PIATTI, ANDRÉS E.; CLARIA OLMEDO, JUAN JOSÉ

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Reunión Anual de la Asoc. Argentina de Astronomía; 2002

CCD BVI Johnson-Cousins observations obtained for 1759 stars in 4'×4' regions around the unstudied southern stellar aggregates Ruprecht 103, 124, 129, 146 and 166 are presented. The objects are described as open clusters in the catalogues of star clusters and associations of Alter et al. (1970) and LyngÅ (1987), as well as, in the ESO/Uppsala Survey of the ESO (B) Atlas (Lauberts 1982). Our analysis shows that none of these objects are genuine open clusters, except perhaps Ruprecht 166, since no clear main sequences (MSs) or other meaningful features can be seen in the extracted (V,B-V) and (V,V-I) colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs). The star sequences seen in the distinct CMDs, specially for Ruprecht 124 and 129, are apparently formed by the superimposition of MS field stars affected by varying amounts of interstellar absorption and/or placed at different distances from the Sun. The CMDs of Ruprecht 166 present a pronounced variation in the luminosity function along the apparent MS, a fact from which we can infer the notion of these stars had a different origin. Star counts carried out within and outside the cluster candidate fields not only support the results that the objects do not present a significant number density contrast with respect to the Galactic disk, but also show that they do not appear to be candidate late stages of star cluster dynamical evolution. Several other stellar aggregates included in open cluster catalogues have previously been disproved as genuine physical systems (see, e.g., Carraro & Patat 1995, MNRAS, 276, 563; Carraro 2000, A&A, 357, 145; Piatti & Clariá 2001, A&A, 370, 931). Thus, the present work implies the potential likelihood of other wrongly classified open clusters.