NGC 2362: a Template for Early Stellar Evolution

Abstract

We present UBVRI photometry for the young open cluster NGC 2362. From analysis of the appropriate color-color and color-magnitude diagrams we derive the fundamental parameters of the NGC 2362 cluster to be: age = 5 (+1-2) Myr, distance = 1480 pc, E(B-V)=0.10 mag. The cluster age was independently determined for both high mass (2.1 - 36Msun) and low mass (0.7 - 1.2Msun) stars with excellent agreement between the ages derived using post-main sequence and pre-main sequence evolutionary tracks for the high and low mass stars respectively. Analysis of this cluster's color-magnitude diagram reveals a well defined pre-main sequence (covering DeltaV ~ 9 magnitudes in V and extending from early A stars to near the hydrogen burning limit) which makes this cluster an ideal laboratory for pre-main sequence evolution studies.