The OPD photometric survey of open clusters I. Techniques, program details and first results of robust determination of the fundamental parameters

摘要

Open clusters are considered valuable objects for the investigation of galactic structure and dynamics since their distances, ages and velocities can be determined with good precision. According to the New Catalog of Optically Visible Open Clusters and Candidates (Dias et al., 2002) about 10% of the optically revealed open clusters remain unstudied. However, previous analysis (Moitinho, 2010) has indicated that not considering this unstudied population introduces significant biases in the study of the structure and evolution of the Milky Way. In addition, a systematic revision of the data contained in the catalog, collected from the literature, is needed, due to its inhomogeneity.