The Small Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC 458. A new UBVI photometric study*
1
Isaac Newton Institute of Chile, Ministerio de Educacion de Chile, Casilla 8-9, Correo 9, Santiago, Chile e-mail: inewton@terra.cl
2
Institute of Astronomy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and Isaac Newton Institute of Chile Bulgarian Branch, 72 Tsarigradsko chaussèe, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria e-mail: jborisso@astro.puc.cl
3
Department of Astronomy, Sofia University and Isaac Newton Institute of Chile Bulgarian Branch, 1164 Sofia, Bulgaria e-mail: kurtev@phys.uni-sofia.bg
Corresponding authors: R. G. Kurtev, kurtev@phys.uni-sofia.bg jborisso@astro.puc.cl
Received:
16
August
2002
Accepted:
7
January
2003
We present a new photometry of the Small Magellanic Cloud star
cluster NGC 458 in UBVI filters. We determine the
reddening 
. By comparison with the isochrones
by Bertelli et al. (1994) we derive an age of ≈140 Myr.
Three candidate blue straggler stars are proposed. The evolved “blue loop”
stars of NGC 458 have masses between 4 and 5 
and are hotter
than model predictions.
Key words: stars: Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) and C-M diagrams / galaxies: stellar content / galaxies: Magellanic clouds / galaxies: individual: SMC / galaxies: stars clusters
© ESO, 2003