B and V photometry of the faint open cluster UKS 2 (BH 66) ^*

¹ Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Dept. de Astronomia, CP. 15051, Porto Alegre 91501-970, Brazil e-mail: bica@if.ufrgs.br
² Università di Padova, Dipartimento di Astronomia, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy e-mail: ortolani@pd.astro.it
³ Universidade de São Paulo, Dept. de Astronomia, CP. 3386, São Paulo 01060-970, Brazil e-mail: barbuy@orion.iagusp.usp.br

Send offprint request to: B. Barbuy

Received: 13 March 2000
Accepted: 30 May 2000

Abstract

Colour-magnitude diagrams are presented for the first time, of the faint southern star cluster UKS 2, which was for a long time reported as a globular cluster candidate.
The V vs. diagrams indicate that UKS 2 is an open cluster with age comparable to that of the Hyades.
It has a reddening of and is located at a distance from the Sun of ≈ 7 kpc. The cluster is located outside the solar radius at galactocentric distance projected on the plane r_GC ≈ 11 kpc, and a height  pc.