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Luminosity and Mass Function of the Galactic open cluster NGC 2422^*

¹ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche ed Astronomiche, Università di Palermo, Piazza del Parlamento 1, 90134 Palermo, Italy
² INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Piazza del Parlamento 1, 90134 Palermo, Italy
³ Astrophysics Division - Space Science Department of ESA, ESTEC, Postbus 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands

Corresponding author: L. Prisinzano, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 6 May 2002
Accepted: 6 April 2003

Abstract

We presentUBVRI photometry of the open cluster NGC 2422 (age yr) down to alimiting magnitude. These data are used to derive the Luminosity and Mass Functions and to study the clusterspatial distribution. By considering the color–magnitudediagram data and adopting a representative cluster main sequence, we obtaineda list of candidate cluster members based on a photometric criterion. Using a reference field region and an iterative procedure, a correction for contaminating field stars has been derived in order to obtain the Luminosity and theMass Functions in the range.By fitting thespatial distribution, we infer that a non-negligible number of cluster stars lies outside our investigated region. We have estimated a correction to the Mass Function of the cluster in order to take into account the “missing” cluster stars. The Present Day MassFunction of NGC 2422 can berepresented by a power-law of index (rms) – the Salpeter Mass Function in thisnotation has index – in the mass range. The indexα and the total mass of the clusterare very similar to those of the Pleiades.