NGC 2477: Photometry and luminosity function ^*

¹ CNRS, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, 98 bis, Boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
² Visiting Astronomer, Las Campanas Observatory
³ Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 36-D, Santiago, Chile
⁴ The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara street, Pasadena, CA 91101-1292, U.S.A.

Corresponding author: Send offprint request to: G. Galaz, e-mail: galaz@iap.fr

Received: 30 January 1996
Accepted: 12 March 1996

Abstract

Trough photometric methods we have constructed the luminosity function for the southern open cluster NGC 2477 down to M_v ≈ 12. We present color-magnitude diagrams and near-infrared color-color diagrams, which allow us to separate statistically the cluster stars from the field ones, numerous because of the galactic latitude of the cluster. Our luminosity function (LF) reproduces some features obtained by other authors, namely, a dip at M_v ≈ 7, and a probable maximum at M_v ≈ 12. The method developed to separate cluster stars from field stars could be of interest to other astronomical problems.