Integrated spectral study of small angular diameter galactic open clusters

Abstract

This paper presents flux-calibrated integrated spectra obtained at Complejo Astronómico El Leoncito (CASLEO, Argentina) for a sample of 9 Galactic open clusters of small angular diameter. The spectra cover the optical range (3800–6800 Å), with a resolution of ∼14 Å. With one exception (Ruprecht 158), the selected clusters are projected into the fourth Galactic quadrant (282 o l 345 o ) near the Galactic plane (∣b∣ ≤ 9 o ). We performed simultaneous estimates of foreground interstellar reddening and age by comparing the continuum distribution and line strenghts of the cluster spectra with those of template cluster spectra with known parameters. We thus provide spectroscopic information independent from that derived through color-magnitude diagram studies. We found three clusters (Collinder 249, NGC 4463 and Ruprecht 122) younger than ∼40 Myr, four moderately young ones (BH 92, Harvard 5, Hogg 14 and Pismis 23) with ages within 200–400 Myr, and two intermediate-age ones (Ruprecht 158 and ESO 065-SC07) with ages within 1.0–2.2 Gyr. The derived foreground E(B−V) color excesses vary from around 0.0 in Ruprecht 158 to ∼1.1 in Pismis 23. In general terms, the results obtained show good agreement with previous photometric results. In Ruprecht 158 and BH 92, however, some differences are found between the parameters here obtained and previous values in the literature. Individual spectra of some comparatively bright stars located in the fields of 5 out of the 9 clusters here studied, allowed us to evaluate their membership status. The current cluster sample complements that of 46 open clusters previously studied by our group in an effort to gather a spectral library with several clusters per age bin. The cluster spectral library that we have been building is an important tool to tie studies of resolved and unresolved stellar content.