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Global survey of star clusters in the Milky Way: The open cluster distance scale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2013

N. V. Kharchenko
Affiliation:
Main Astronomical Observatory, 27 Academica Zabolotnogo Str., 03680 Kiev, Ukraine email: [email protected] Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstr. 12–14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected], [email protected] Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany email: [email protected]
A. E. Piskunov
Affiliation:
Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstr. 12–14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected], [email protected] Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany email: [email protected] Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 48 Pyatnitskaya Str., 109017 Moscow, Russia email: [email protected]
S. Röser
Affiliation:
Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstr. 12–14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected], [email protected]
E. Schilbach
Affiliation:
Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstr. 12–14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected], [email protected]
R.-D. Scholz
Affiliation:
Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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We present the Milky Way Star Clusters (MWSC) survey based on 470 million stars extracted from the all-sky catalogues PPMXL and 2mass. The target list comprises 3784 entries and includes all open and globular clusters, as well as all cluster candidates, known at present. By means of a combined photometric/astrometric pipeline process, we determine individual membership probabilities for cluster stars and provide fundamental cluster parameters such as cluster centre coordinates, mean proper motions, radial velocity, distance, reddening, age and tidal radius. This sample includes ~ 700 clusters with fundamental parameters based on optical data and offers a good opportunity for a comparison of the near-infrared (NIR) and optical cluster distance scales. We find that distances and reddening values obtained from the colour–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) in the NIR agree well with earlier distance estimates based on optical CMDs. These newly obtained homogeneous distances, together with the other cluster parameters, allow us to study the properties of the open cluster population in the Galactic disk.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2013

References

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