Related papers: The helium spread in the Globular cluster 47 Tuc

We present aluminium abundances for a sample of about 100 red giant stars in each of the Galactic globular clusters 47 Tuc (NGC 104) and M 4 (NGC 6121). We have derived homogeneous abundances from intermediate-resolution FLAMES/GIRAFFE…

Shells in Elliptical Galaxies are faint, sharp-edged features, believed to provide evidence of a recent ($\sim 0.5 - 2 \times 10^9$ years ago) merger event. We analyse the Globular Cluster (GC) systems of six shell elliptical galaxies, to…

Recent observations have shown that a growing number of the most massive Galactic globular clusters contain multiple populations of stars with different [Fe/H] and neutron-capture element abundances. NGC 6273 has only recently been…

We have used ESO telescopes at La Silla and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in order to obtain accurate B,V,I CCD photometry for the stars located within 200" (~= 2 half-mass radii, r_h = 1.71') from the center of the cluster NGC 6101.…

Globular Cluster (GC) systems of most early-type galaxies show bimodal optical color distributions, yet their Luminosity Functions (LFs) look like simple Gaussians with turn-over magnitudes used for determination of distances and the Hubble…

The connection between mass loss on the red giant branch (RGB) and horizontal branch (HB) morphology in globular clusters (GCs) has long been acknowledged but the mechanisms governing mass loss remains poorly understood from a theoretical…

Almost all globular clusters investigated exhibit a spread in their light element abundances, the most studied being a Na:O anticorrelation. In contrast, open clusters show a homogeneous composition and are still regarded as Simple Stellar…

The presence of extreme horizontal branch (EHB) and blue hook stars in some Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) constitutes one of the remaining mysteries of stellar evolution. In this paper, we focus on $\omega$ Cen, a peculiar, massive GGC…

The halo structure at high Galactic latitudes near both the north and south poles is studied using SDSS and SuperCOSMOS data. For the south cap halo, the archive of the SuperCOSMOS photographic photometry sky survey is used. The coincident…

We use Cycle 21 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and HST archival ACS Treasury observations of 30 Galactic Globular Clusters to characterize two distinct stellar populations. A sophisticated Bayesian technique is employed to…

NGC 2419 is one of the remotest star clusters in the Milky Way halo and its exact nature is yet unclear: While it has traits reminiscent of a globular cluster (GC), its large radius and suggestions of an abundance spread have fueled the…

The stellar enhancement of the cluster NGC 110 is investigated in various optical and infrared (IR) bands. The radial density profile of the IR region does not show a stellar enhancement in the central region of the cluster. This stellar…

We recently discovered that NGC 3201 has characteristics that set it outside the current twofold classification scheme for Galactic globular clusters (GCs). Most GCs are mono-metallic and show light-element abundance variations (e.g., Na-O…

We have completely mapped the globular cluster NGC 1851 with VI CCD photometry, obtaining a CMD for ca. 20500 stars. From the apparent luminosity of the HB we derive a distance modulus (m-M)o=15.44+/-0.20. The presence of 7 "supra-HB" stars…

We present stellar atmosphere and evolution models of main sequence stars in two stellar populations of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 6752. These populations represent the two extremes of light-element abundance variations in the…

The location of the Scutum Red-Supergiant (RSG) clusters at the end of the Galactic Bar makes them an excellent probe of the Galaxy's secular evolution; while the clusters themselves are ideal testbeds in which to study the predictions of…

We examine the significance of a planar arrangement in the spatial distribution of the Milky Way's globular clusters (GCs). We find that, when separated on the basis of horizontal branch morphology and metallicity, the outer-most canonical…

A recent analysis comparing the [Na/Fe] distributions of red giant branch (RGB) and asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in the Galactic globular cluster NGC 6752 found that the ratio of Na-poor to Na-rich stars changes from 30:70 on the RGB…

We present a comprehensive study of the luminosity function and spatial structure of the globular cluster system of NGC 4472, based on deep wide field Washington CT1 CCD images. The globular cluster luminosity function shows a peak at…

We explore the cosmological halo-to-halo scatter of the distribution of mass within dark matter halos utilizing a well-resolved statistical sample of clusters from the cosmological Millennium simulation. We find that at any radius, the…