CCD photometry in the region of NGC 6994: the remains of an old open\n cluster

We present the results of BV(RI)_KC CCD photometry down to V=21 mag in the\nregion of NGC 6994. To our knowledge, no photometry has previously been\nreported for this object and we find evidences that it is a poor and sparse old\nopen cluster, with a minimum angular diameter of 9 arcmin, i.e. larger than the\n3 arcmin originally assigned to it. We obtain a color excess E(B-V) = 0.07 +/-\n0.02 mag by means of the BVI_(C) technique. Based on the theoretical isochrones\nfrom VandenBergh (1985) that are in better agreement with our data, we estimate\nfor this cluster a distance from the Sun of 620 pc (Vo-Mv = 9 +/- 0.25 mag) and\nan age lying within the range of 2 - 3 Gyr, adopting solar metallicity. Thus,\nthe corresponding cluster's Galactocentric distance is 8.1 kpc and is placed at\nabout 350 pc below the Galactic plane. According to this results, NGC 6994\nbelongs to the old open cluster population located in the outer disk and at\nlarge distances from the Galactic plane, and must have suffered significant\nindividual dynamical evolution, resulting in mass segregation and evaporation\nof low mass stars.\n