Towards a census of the Galactic anticentre star clusters - III: tracing the spiral structure in the Outer Disk

TL;DR

This study investigates 27 star cluster candidates near the Galactic anticentre, confirming 20, including 7 new clusters, and uses these to trace the spiral structure of the Outer Disk, revealing the extension of the Outer arm and potential Galactic contamination of IC 10.

Contribution

It provides a new census of star clusters in the Galactic anticentre region and demonstrates their role in mapping the Galaxy's spiral structure, including the Outer arm extension.

Findings

Confirmed 20 clusters, including 7 new identifications.

Extended the known Outer arm in the third Galactic quadrant.

Identified potential Galactic contamination in observations of IC 10.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the nature of 27 star cluster candidates, most of them projected towards the Galactic anticentre. We derive fundamental parameters for 20 confirmed clusters, among these 7 are new identifications. Four of the remaining are uncertain cases that require deeper photometry to establish their nature, and 4 are probably field fluctuations. In addition, we provide a partial census of the open clusters towards the Galactic anticentre. We also include in this study some interesting objects outside the anticentre region, in the second and third Galactic quadrants, mainly in the Perseus and Outer arms. These clusters confirm the extension of the Outer arm along the third quadrant. We also point out that the embedded cluster FSR 486, at a distance of 7.2 +/- 1.3 kpc from de Sun, is projected on the line of sight of the Local Group irregular dwarf galaxy IC 10. Thus, part of the unusual properties of IC 10 may be explained by a Galactic contamination. We point out the importance of embedded clusters in tracing the spiral structure.