Study of an intermediate age open cluster IC 1434 using ground-based imaging and Gaia DR2 astrometry

TL;DR

This study provides a comprehensive photometric and kinematic analysis of the open cluster IC 1434, determining its membership, motion, size, reddening, age, and distance using ground-based and Gaia DR2 data.

Contribution

First detailed analysis of IC 1434 combining ground-based imaging with Gaia DR2 astrometry to determine membership, kinematics, and fundamental parameters.

Findings

Identified 238 probable cluster members with >60% probability.

Measured the cluster's mean proper motion as (-3.89, -3.34) mas/yr.

Estimated the cluster's age as 631 Myr and distance as 3.2 kpc.

Abstract

We present a detailed photometric and kinematical analysis of poorly studied open cluster IC 1434 using CCD VRI, APASS, and Gaia DR2 database for the first time. BY determining the membership probability of stars, we identified the 238 most probable members with a probability higher than 60% by using proper motion and parallax data as taken from the Gaia DR2 catalog. The mean proper motion of the cluster is obtained as emu_x= - 3.89 +/- 0.19 and emu_y= - 3.34 +/- 0.19 mas/yr in both the directions of right ascension and declination. The radial distribution of member stars provides cluster extent as 7.6 arcmin. We have estimated the interstellar reddening (E(B-V)) as 0.34 mag using the transformation equations from literature. We obtained the values of cluster age and distance are 631 +/- 73 Myr and 3.2 +/- 0.1 Kpc.