Open clusters belonging to star-forming complexes are the leftovers from the initial stellar generations. The study of these young systems provides constraints to models of star formation and evolution as well as to the properties of the Galactic dis
c. We aimed at investigating NGC1981, a young open cluster in the Orion Nebula Region, using near-IR and BV (RI)C photometric data.We devised a method that accounts for the field contamination and allows to derive photometric membership for the cluster stars. A new cluster centre was determined by Gaussian fittings to the 2-D stellar distribution on the sky, and has been used used to obtain the radial stellar density profile and the structural parameters. Mass functions were computed for stars inside the cluster limiting radius and total mass estimated from them. Although more easily distinguished by its grouping of 6 relatively bright stars, an underlying population of faint pre-main sequence stars is evident in the cluster area. We showed that this population is related to the cluster itself rather than to the nearby Orion Nebula cluster. Additionally a fraction of the cluster low mass stars may have been evaporated from the region in its early evolution leading to the present sparse, loose structure. The estimated parameters of NGC1981 are core radius Rc = 0.09 +/- 0.04 pc, limiting radius Rlim = 1.21+/-0.11 pc, age t = 5+/-1 Myr, distance modulus (m-M)0 = 7.9+/-0.1 (380 +/- 17 pc), reddening E(B - V)= 0.07 +/- 0.03 and total mass m = 137 +/- 14 Mcdot.
We present B and V photometry of the outlying SMC star cluster BS196 with the 4.1-m SOAR telescope. The photometry is deep (to V~25) showing ~3 mag below the cluster turnoff point (TO) at Mv=2.5 (1.03 Msun). The cluster is located at the SMC distance
. The CMD and isochrone fittings provide a cluster age of 5.0+-0.5 Gyr, indicating that this is one of the 12 oldest clusters so far detected in the SMC. The estimated metallicity is [Fe/H]=-1.68+-0.10. The structural analysis gives by means of King profile fittings a core radius Rc=8.7+-1.1 arcsec (2.66+-0.14 pc) and a tidal radius Rt=69.4+-1.7 arcsec (21.2+-1.2 pc). BS196 is rather loose with a concentration parameter c=0.90. With Mv=-1.89+-0.39, BS196 belongs to the class of intrinsically fainter SMC clusters, as compared to the well-known populous ones, which starts to be explored.
