Abstract
<i>Context. <i/>We present a photometric and astrometric catalog of 187 963 stars located in the field around the old super-metal-rich Galactic open cluster NGC 6253. The total field-of-view covered by the catalog is 34”33”. In this field, we provide CCD <i>BVRI<i/> photometry. For a smaller region close to the cluster's center, we also provide near-infrared <i>JHK<i/> photometry.<i>Aims. <i/>We analyze the properties of NGC 6253 by using our new photometric data and astrometric membership.<i>Methods. <i/>In June 2004, we targeted the cluster during a 10 day multi-site campaign, which involved the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope with its wide-field imager and the Anglo-Australian 3.9 m telescope, equipped with the IRIS2 near-infrared imager. Archival CCD images of NGC 6253 were used to derive relative proper motions and to calculate the cluster membership probabilities.<i>Results. <i/>We have refined the cluster's fundamental parameters, deriving , , , , and . The color excess ratios obtained using both the optical and near infrared colors indicate a normal reddening law in the direction of NGC 6253. The age of NGC 6253 at 3.5 Gyr, determined from our best-fitting isochrone appears to be slightly older than the previous estimates. Finally, we estimated the binary fraction among the cluster members to be ~20%-30% and identified 11 blue straggler candidates.
Highlights
Studies of old Galactic open clusters at a range of different ages, metallicities, and spatial location in the disk are fundamental for understanding the formation and chemical/dynamical evolution of the Galactic disk since its early assembly (Janes et al 1994; Friel et al 2002; Bragaglia & Tosi 2006)
We present a photometric and astrometric catalog of 187 963 stars located in the field around the old super-metal-rich Galactic open cluster NGC 6253
We present a photometric and astrometric catalog of 187 963 stars in the BVRIJHK bands in the field of the old and metal-rich Galactic open cluster NGC 6253
Summary
Studies of old Galactic open clusters at a range of different ages, metallicities, and spatial location in the disk are fundamental for understanding the formation and chemical/dynamical evolution of the Galactic disk since its early assembly (Janes et al 1994; Friel et al 2002; Bragaglia & Tosi 2006). A few open clusters of unexpectedly old age have been detected toward the Galactic center (Carraro et al 2005a,b), which allows to extend the baseline for the Galactic radial abundance gradient studies by up to 2−3 kpc in the bulge direction, once the metal abundances are measured. The two old and extremely metal-rich open clusters, NGC 6791 and NGC 6253, located in the inner Galaxy, have been studied relatively extensively. Searching for extrasolar planets in metal-rich open clusters should increase the probability of planetary detection, allowing us to study the planetary formation and evolution processes among the stars that share well-defined common properties. Montalto et al.: BVRIJHK photometry and proper motion analysis of NGC 6253 and the surrounding field
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