Structural Parameters of the Globular Cluster M 15
Abstract
We present a detailed analysis of the structural parameters of the globular cluster M 15 using g- and i-band photometric data from Pan-STARRS1 DR2. The central coordinates (), ellipticity (), and position angle (PA) are derived via two independent methods: ellipse fitting of the two-dimensional stellar number isodensity distribution and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. Our analysis of 38 stellar density intervals reveals a cluster center offset by only from the commonly accepted in the literature value, a good agreement on the order of our map resolution. We find a radial variation in the ellipticity, with a mean value of for the inner region () and for the outer region (), where the errors correspond to . The MCMC analysis of 75 datasets yields a mean for the entire cluster. The PA remains constant with increasing distance from the cluster center, , and the MCMC method providing a consistent value of . Our results are in agreement with some recent studies but challenge others, suggesting that a single value may be insufficient to fully characterize the overall oblateness of M 15 due to incompleteness and crowding effects in its core.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.13140,
title = {Structural Parameters of the Globular Cluster M 15},
author = {M. V. Petkova and G. P. Petrov and N. M. Kacharov and P. L. Nedialkov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.13140},
year = {2026}
}