The Use of Praesepe for the Definition of the Lower Part of the Zero-Age Main Sequence

In an attempt to determine the Hyades distance (Golay, 1973), it was assumed that stars of the same “photometric 0m.01 box” (see Golay, 1977a) have the same visual absolute magnitude. The large amount of photometric data in the UBV B1B2V1G photometric system allows a discussion on this hypothesis (Golay, 1977b). We have 60 “photometric 0m.01 boxes”, each containing a central star of known trigonometric parallax and at least one Praesepe star. We select the 16 boxes (Table I) containing single stars or binaries with an estimated mass ratio, a relative probable error < 30% for the parallaxes and a standard deviation for colors <0m.007. The UBV B1B2V1G colors, the indices (B-V), (B2-V1) and the magnitude mV are taken from the Second Catalogue (Rufener, 1976) and the internal catalogue of the Geneva Observatory. The color index (B-V) is taken from Johnson (1952, 1957), Johnson and Knuckles (1955), the trigonometric parallax from Jenkins (1952, 1963) and Gliese (1969) and the spectral type for Hyades stars from Morgan and Hiltner (1965). The listings of all 0m.01 photometric star boxes in the UBV B1B2V1G system are given by Golay (1977c). The parallax obtained for Praesepe is π(0″.001) = 6.175 ± p.e. 0.1, i.e. a distance modulus (m-M) = 6m.05 and a distance of 162 parsecs. Golay (1977c) published the differences of the distance moduli for pairs of clusters having stars in the same box. The distances of these clusters is given in Table III, assuming a distance of 162 pc for Praesepe. The accuracy of this method is independent of both the distance magnitude and the chemical composition of the stars of a cluster since the stars have to be in the same box as a star with a known trigonometric parallax. The main sequence of Praesepe and a sample of Hyades stars, in the same photometric box with a Praesepe star is given in Table II. The depth effect in Praesepe being very small, the main sequence is very thin and the main sequence fitting procedure is better starting from Praesepe than from the Hyades.