The open cluster Berkeley 53

TL;DR

This study provides a comprehensive photometric analysis of the open cluster Berkeley 53, determining its fundamental parameters, structure, and mass, revealing it as a rich, massive, and significantly reddened stellar system in the Perseus Arm.

Contribution

It offers new detailed photometric measurements and analysis of Berkeley 53, including its age, distance, reddening, structure, and mass function, highlighting its properties and abnormal extinction law.

Findings

Located 3.1 kpc from the Sun in the Perseus Arm.

Age exceeds 1 billion years, yet dynamically young.

Significant reddening with evidence of abnormal extinction law.

Abstract

We present a photometric study of the neglected open cluster Berkeley 53. We derived its fundamental parameters, such as the age, the interstellar reddening, and the distance from the Sun, based on BV photometry combined with near-infrared JHK data. The structure and the mass function of the cluster were also studied and the total number of members and the total mass were estimated. The cluster was found to be a rich and massive stellar system, located in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way, 3.1+/-0.1 kpc from the Sun. Its age exceeds 1 Gy but it seems to be very young in the context of its dynamical evolution. The analysis of the two-color diagrams and color-magnitude diagrams indicates that the cluster is significantly reddened. However, both methods resulted in different values of E(B-V), i.e. 1.21+/-0.04 and 1.52+/-0.01, respectively. This discrepancy suggests the presence of an abnormal interstellar extinction law toward the cluster.