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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2003
UBVRI photometry of the open cluster NGC2422 (age~108 yr) down to alimiting magnitude V ≃ 19 is used to study the clusterspatial distribution and the luminosity and mass functions. From the Color-MagnitudeDiagram (CMD), we obtaineda list of candidate cluster members based on a photometric criterion.Using a comparison field region and an iterative procedure, a correction for contaminating field stars has been inferred in order to obtain the luminosity and themass functions in theM=0.4-3.5 M⊙ range.By analyzing thespatial distribution, we infer that a non-negligible number of cluster stars lie outside our investigated region. We estimate a correction to the mass function of the cluster in order to take into account the complete stellar population. The Present Day MassFunction of NGC2422 can berepresented by a power-law of index α = 3.07 ± 0.08 (rms) in the mass range 0.9 ≤ M/M⊙ ≤ 2.5. The index α and the total mass of thecluster are very similar to those of the Pleiades.