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T. K. Wyder (U. Washington)
While the massive clusters in the Magellanic Clouds have been well studied, less is known about their numerous, less massive open clusters. Reliable ages of star clusters are important in understanding how the cluster formation rate varies compared to the field star formation rate in galaxies. Using archival HST WFPC2 exposures in F555W and F814W, we extract color-magnitude diagrams of three open clusters in the SMC: L31, H86-84 and B83. CMDs for the field stars are also extracted and are used to statistically subtract the field contribution to the cluster CMDs. We determine the cluster ages by comparing the CMDs with theoretical stellar isochrones. Both B83 and H86-84 have an age of 0.8 Gyr while L31 is a little bit younger with an age of 0.6 Gyr.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: wyder@astro.washington.edu