13 Color Photometry of Open Cluster M48

Abstract

This paper presents 13 color CCD intermediate-band spectrophotometry of a field centered on the open cluster M48 (NGC 2548), from 400nm to nearly 1000nm, taken with Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut (BATC) Multi-Color Survey Photometric system. The fundamental parameters of this cluster are derived with a new method which based on the comparison between the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of cluster stars and the theoretical SEDs of Padova models. We find that the best-fitting age of M48 is 0.32 Gyr, the distance is 780 pc and a reddening E(B-V)=0.04 with a solar metallicity Z=0.019

17 pages, 2 figures, will appear in the January 2005 issue of PASP