UV observations of globular clusters and nearby galaxies

Annapurni Subramaniam1*
Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore 560 034, India

Abstract. We propose to identify the hot stellar population of the galactic globular clusters (GCs) using the TAUVEX. These stars can be easily identified in the core of the GCs where the crowding due to the main-sequence stars get dramatically reduced in the UV broad bands. We propose to observe and create a first complete and homogeneous UV data on Magellanic Clouds. Studies of extra-galactic globular clusters in the UV is the only way to estimate their age and metallicity without ambiguity. Such studies have not been done even for M 31. Therefore, we propose that extra-galactic globular clusters should be observed in the UV broad band filters.

Keywords: (galaxy:) globular clusters: general - (stars:) blue stragglers - stars: horizontal branch - (galaxies:) local group - (galaxies:) Magellanic clouds - ultraviolet: galaxies, stars

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