NGC 4852 is an open cluster which is located in Centaurus. NGC 4852 is not a long way from the Coalsack nebula which contains NGC 4755. From the recent photometric survey, NGC 4852 is estimated that it is about 200-250 million years old. The location of the NGC 4852 is estimated to be 1.1 kpcs away from the Sun.
Although NGC 4852 is known that it is an intermediate-aged cluster, there are some assumptions that NGC 4852 could be a young cluster. Two emission stars were found in NGC 4852, one is Wray 15-1039 and the other is CPD-594639 (a Be star). It is uncertain that Be phenomenon occurs in the last half of the main sequence of a lifetime. It is certain that it happens frequently when the clusters are about 13-25 million years old. Also, it is certain that Be phenomenon rarely occurs when the clusters are older than 100 million years. Therefore, these are some opinions that NGC 4852 could be a young cluster.
Figure 1: Reddened Image of NGC 4852
Figure 2: De-reddened Image of NGC 4852
The reddened image occurs when we observe the cluster from the Earth where more blue light waves are absorbed by the interstellar dust than red light waves. The stars seem redder as a result. The dereddened image occurs when we observe the cluster from space where both blue and red waves are not absorbed by the interstellar dust. We can see that the dereddened image is clearer than the reddened image.
Figure 3: Two Cluster Pro Plus graphs of NGC 4852
The isochrone model on the left is data from GAIA and the isochrone model on the right is data from the images I took. From the graph on the left, the majority of the points are orange and white and from the graph on the right, almost all of the points are blue.
Conclusion
It was interesting that although NGC 4852 is known as an intermediate-aged cluster, NGC 4852 can sometimes be measured as a young cluster as I wrote here and most of the data points were blue from the graph of the isochrone model on the right. This project was interesting. It was also interesting to see beautiful pictures of stars.
References
Refining the true parameters of the open cluster NGC 4852 – NASA/ADS (harvard.edu)