Apr 02, 2014: Photometry of M35 for Observational Astronomy class

Michael Richmond
Apr 05, 2014

On the night of Apr 02/03, 2014, two students taking the Observational Astronomy course -- Rose Rustowicz and and Sabrina Caliri -- acquired images of the open cluster M35 for their class project.

The main setup was:

M35 is a relatively large open cluster, with an apparent angular diameter of half a degree or more. Our camera can only capture a portion of the cluster; in the figure below, based on a DSS chart, the field of view of our camera is shown as a gold rectangle.

We acquired 10 "short" images in each passband, and 40 and 30 "long" images in B and V, respectively. A single "long" image in V is shown below (after dark subtraction, but without flatfielding).

The individual long V-band images show stars down to about V = 16. By co-adding the images, we ought to be able to gain another magnitude or possibly two.

The students plan to make an HR diagram for M35 based on their images. I think it will turn out well!


Last modified 4/5/2014 by MWR.