Fibre spectroscopy and BV CCD photometry of the southern open cluster NGC 3114

Abstract

New spectroscopic and photometric observations are presented for a sample of faint stars which extends the color-magnitude diagram of the open cluster NGC 3114 down to V = 16 mag. The distance to the cluster is estimated as 940 + or - 60 pc. The spectroscopic observations indicate the presence of six CaII emitters in a sample of 55 stars. Radial velocity measurements and spectral classification have been carried out for all the 55 stars. Both spectroscopic and photometric observations indicate the presence of a large number of field stars in the direction of the cluster. Isochrones fitted to the color-magnitude diagram as well as the position of the red giant concentration indicate that the age of the cluster is about 1-2 x 10 to the 8th yr.