An Optical and Infrared Photometric Study of the Young Open Cluster IC 1805 in the Giant H II Region W4

Abstract

We present deep wide-field optical CCD photometry and mid-infrared Spitzer/IRAC and MIPS 24 mu m data for about 100,000 stars in the young open cluster IC 1805. The members of IC 1805 were selected from their location in the various color-color and color-magnitude diagrams, and the presence of H alpha emission, mid-infrared excess emission, and X-ray emission. The reddening law toward IC 1805 is nearly normal (R-V = 3.05 +/- 0.06). However, the distance modulus of the cluster is estimated to be 11.9 +/- 0.2 mag (d = 2.4 +/- 0.2 kpc) from the reddening-free color-magnitude diagrams, which is larger than the distance to the nearby massive star-forming region W3(OH) measured from the radio VLBA astrometry. We also determined the age of IC 1805 (tau(MSTO) = 3.5 Myr). In addition, we critically compared the age and mass scale from two pre-main-sequence evolution models. The initial mass function with a Salpeter-type slope of Gamma = -1.3 +/- 0.2 was obtained and the total mass of IC 1805 was estimated to be about 2700 +/- 200 M-circle dot. Finally, we found our distance determination to be statistically consistent with the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution Data Release 1, within the errors. The proper motion of the B-type stars shows an elongated distribution along the Galactic plane, which could be explained by some of the B-type stars being formed in small clouds dispersed by previous episodes of star formation or supernova explosions. Show more