The anticentre old open clusters Berkeley 27, Berkeley 34 and Berkeley 36: New additions to the BOCCE project

Abstract

In this paper, we present the investigation of the evolutionary status of three open clusters: Berkeley 27, Berkeley 34 and Berkeley 36, all located in the Galactic anticentre direction. All of them were observed with SUperb Seeing Imager 2 at the New Technology Telescope using the Bessel B, V and I filters. The cluster parameters have been obtained using the synthetic colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) method, i.e. the direct comparison of the observational CMDs with a library of synthetic CMDs generated with different evolutionary sets (Padova, FRANEC and FST). This analysis shows that Berkeley 27 has an age between 1.5 and 1.7Gyr, a reddening E(B-V) in the range 0.40-0.50 and a distance modulus (m-M)0 between 13.1 and 13.3; Berkeley 34 is older with an age in the range 2.1-2.5Gyr, E(B-V) between 0.57 and 0.64 and (m-M)0 between 14.1 and 14.3; Berkeley 36, with an age between 7.0 and 7.5Gyr, has a reddening of E(B-V) ∼ 0.50 and a distance modulus (m-M)0 between 13.1 and 13.2. For all the clusters, our analysis suggests a subsolar metallicity in accord with their position in the outer Galactic disc. © 2012 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS.