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Description
We provide new evidence that NGC 2451A is undoubtedly a young open cluster, although sparsely populated. New cluster membership has been derived from relative proper motions of 5868 stars. In total, 136 stars down to V~15 5 have membership probability P{mu}>=2%. New CCD BV photometry indicates that about 70 stars are indeed main-sequence stars of NGC 2451A. This is also supported by our measurements of radial velocities. A total of 34 very likely cluster members yield a mean heliocentric radial velocity for NGC 2451A equal to +22.9km/s. The high quality of our BV photometry, a confirmation of cluster membership from proper motions and radial velocities, and a recently obtained metallicity estimate for several cluster stars allow us to perform a precise isochrone fit. The Yale isochrones, updated by the latest available input physics, have been fitted to the cluster's color-magnitude diagram, yielding a distance modulus V_0_-M_V_ in the range 6.35 to 6.38, which is in excellent agreement with the distance modulus (m-M)_0_=6.38 derived from the Hipparcos data recently by van Leeuwen and Robichon et al. (1998, Cat. <J/A+AS/130/157>). We have used the high-resolution spectra acquired using the Hydra multiobject spectrograph at the WIYN telescope (Kitt Peak, Arizona) in 1997 November and 1998 October.
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