CAOSP abstracts, Volume: 38, No.: 2, year: 2008

Abstract: The study of open clusters naturally introduces many advantages, because they are physically related groups of stars held together by mutual gravitational attraction that were formed at roughly the same time from one large cosmic gas and dust cloud. Their evolutionary stages range from clouds where star formation takes still place at this moment, to very old aggregates with turn-off points as late as solar type stars. Therefore, they represent samples of Population I stars of constant age and comparable intrinsic chemical composition, suited for the study of processes linked with stellar structure and evolution, and they fix lines or loci in several most important astrophysical diagrams.