Fundamentals of Stellar Parameters Estimation through CMD of Star Clusters: Open (NGC2360) and Globular (NGC 5272)

TL;DR

This paper details a method for estimating stellar parameters of open and globular star clusters using CMDs and isochrone fitting, providing results consistent with existing literature and enhancing understanding of stellar evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive approach to stellar parameter estimation through CMD analysis and isochrone fitting, applied to NGC 2360 and NGC 5272, with results validated against previous studies.

Findings

Age of NGC 2360 is 708 Myrs with [Fe/H] of -0.15

Age of NGC 5272 is 11.56 Gyrs with [Fe/H] of -1.57

Derived parameters closely match literature values

Abstract

The fundamentals of estimating essential stellar parameters of an open cluster-NGC 2360 and globular clusters-NGC 5272 are presented extensively in this work. Here, the evaluation of stellar parameters, by manually fitting the appropriate isochrones on the color magnitude diagrams (CMDs), of the selected star clusters is discussed comprehensively. Aperture photometry and PSF fitting photometry are conducted on g, r, and i standard band filter images of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using the aperture photometry tool (APT) to obtain the respective CMDs. Further, to achieve the stellar parameters, isochrone fitting is described in detail. This work on stellar parameters evaluation has attained the following results: age of NGC 2360 is found to be 708 Myrs with metallicity, [Fe/H], of -0.15, whereas NGC 5272 is having age of 11.56 Gyrs with metallicity, [Fe/H], of -1.57. Additionally, the interstellar reddening, E(B-V), and distance modulus, DM, for NGC 2360 are obtained as 0.12 and 11.65, respectively. While, for NGC 5272, the interstellar reddening is attained as E(B-V)=0.015, and the distance modulus is DM=15.1. The values of these stellar parameters are found to be in close approximation with the results provided in the literature based on the IRAF analysis technique. The distribution of radii, masses, and temperatures are included along with the initial mass function (IMF) for both the start clusters. Thus, this article would aid in providing insight into the evaluation of stellar parameters by the astronomical photometry analysis which would successively upsurge the understanding of our universe. It should be noted that the cleaning of cluster population on the CMDs from the foreground/background stars, clearing of spurious objects, error estimations and the membership determination are not carried out in this work and are considered as separate project for analysis.