SCYON Abstract

Received on January 22 2003

Photometric study of the young open cluster NGC 3293

AuthorsG. Baume 1,2, R. A. Vázquez 1, G. Carraro 2, A. Feinstein 1
Affiliation1 Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas de la UNLP, IALP-CONICET, Paseo del Bosque s/n, 1900, La Plata, Argentina
2 Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Vicolo Osservatorio 2, I-35122 Padova, Italy
Accepted byAstronomy & Astrophysics
Contactgbaume@fcaglp.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar
URLhttp://www.fcaglp.unlp.edu.ar/~gbaume/cumulos/
Links NGC 3293

Abstract

Deep and extensive CCD photometric observations UBV(RI)c Halpha were carried out in the area of the open cluster NGC 3293. The new data set allows to see the entire cluster sequence down to MV ~ +4.5, revealing that stars with MV < -2 are evolving off the main sequence; stars with -2 < MV < +2 are located on the main sequence and stars with MV > +2 are placed above it. According to our analysis, the cluster distance is d = 2750 ± 250 pc (Vo-MV = 12.2 ± 0.2) and its nuclear age is 8 ± 1 Myr. NGC 3293 contains an important fraction of pre-main sequence (PMS) stars distributed along a parallel band to the ZAMS with masses from 1 to 2.5 Msun and a mean contraction age of 10 Myr. This last value does not differ too much from the nuclear age estimate. Actually, if we take into account the many factors that may affect the PMS star positions onto the colour-magnitude diagram, both ages can be perfectly reconciled. The star formation rate, on the other hand, suggests that NGC 3293 stars formed surely in one single event, therefore favouring a coeval process of star formation. Besides, using the Halpha data, we detected nineteen stars with signs of having Halpha emission in the region of NGC 3293, giving another indication that the star formation process is still active in the region. The computed initial mass function for the cluster has a slope value x = 1.2 ± 0.2, a bit flatter than the typical slope for field stars and similar to the values found for other young open clusters.