The first CCD photometric study of the open cluster NGC 2126

¹ Department of Experimental Physics and Astronomical Observatory, University of Szeged, Szeged, Dóm Tér 9, 6720, Hungary
² Guest Observer at Konkoly Observatory
³ School of Physics, University of Sydney 2006, Australia
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy and the Wise Observatory, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel
⁵ Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 67, 1525 Budapest, Hungary
⁶ Astronomical Observatory, Szeged, Hungary

Corresponding author: L. L. Kiss, laszlo@physics.usyd.edu.au

Received: 1 April 2003
Accepted: 18 August 2003

Abstract

We present the first CCD photometric observations of the northern open cluster NGC 2126. Data were taken on eight nights in February and December 2002 with a total time span of ~57 hours. Almost 1000 individual V-band frames were examined to find short-period variable stars. We discovered six new variable stars, of which one is a promising candidate for an eclipsing binary with a pulsating component. Two stars were classified as δ Scuti stars and one as Algol-type eclipsing binary. Two stars are slow variables with ambiguous classification. From absolute photometry we have estimated the main characteristics of the cluster: and kpc. Cluster membership is suggested for three variable stars from their positions on the colour–magnitude diagram.