1 Introduction

The stellar content investigations of the Local Group of galaxies allow us to study in fine detail the star formation history of these systems. They also provide important verification information for the stellar evolution theory.

IC1613 is a faint irregular member of the Local group. The galaxy was discovered by Wolf (1906) with the 16-inch Bruce refractor at Heidelberg. Baade (1928) using plates taken with the 16-inch Bergedorf reflector classified it as a Magellanic-Cloud-type galaxy. Baade (1963) and Sandage (1971) investigated variable stars, brightest stars and H II regions in the galaxy. Hodge (1978) published photoelectric and photographic surveys of its structure and stellar content. He identified twenty OB associations and pointed out the absence of bright globular clusters and the remarkably low number of stellar clusters. More recently, in 1988 Wendy Freedman presented B, V, R and I stellar photometry of over 2000 stars in two fields in IC1613 from CCD frames obtained on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. As pointed out by Freedman (1988a) "The disk of IC1613 is seen to contain stars with a range of ages: 1. young stars indicated by a distinctive plume of luminous blue stars, yellow supergiants, Cepheids, and a smaller number of red supergiant candidates at comparable luminosities, 2. intermediate-age stars, typified by very red extended asymptotic-giant-branch stars and carbon stars and finally, 3. a population consistent with that of an old, red giant population...". Saha et al. (1992) confirmed the presence of old type population by discovering the fifteen RR Lyrae stars in the field of IC1613. There are several studies concerning HI (Lake & Skillman 1989; Wenstpfahl et al. 1996). The rotation curve of IC1613 shows evidence of dark matter in the outer parts. There is also evidence that the A10 Hodge association (Hodge et al. 1991) which is in the H II region has the youngest star ages among the rest. Eight W-R candidates are suspected (Armandroff & Massey 1985) and one of them - WO3 - is surrounded by nebulae (Kingsburgh & Barlow 1995). Finally IC1613 is the only dwarf galaxy with a strong X-ray source detected (Helfand 1996) to be located close to the most luminous Oxygen Wolf-Rayet star.

This paper presents a deep UBV photometry of the selected H-alpha emission area of IC1613 as well as detailed investigations of its young stellar content.