CHARACTERIZATION OF THE FIELD POPULATION IN THE PLEIADES CLUSTER REGION FOR EDDINGTON

摘要

The Pleiades cluster is one of the most likely target regions of Eddington. Here we present the characterization of the field population in this region in view of the Eddington mission. We show what can be expected for several parameters of the potential field target stars such as their number and their characteristics (luminosity classes, ages and spectral types). Five catalogs (Prosser, Tycho, 2MASS, USNO-B.1, Sloan Digital Sky Survey) were examined and color magnitude diagrams as well as histograms are shown here to describe the properties of the field stars. We find that even for such a well observed region as the Pleiades, there is by far not enough catalog data available in order to determine the characteristics of the field population. This leads to the conclusion that a large amount of preparatory ground based observations is needed to characterize Eddington's target stars.