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Alpha Per Open Cluster XMM-Newton X-Ray Source Catalog

Published by High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center | National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Metadata Last Checked: February 14, 2026 | Last Modified: 2026-02-10
This table contains results from the analysis of an archival XMM-Newton observation of part of the Alpha Persei open cluster. The authors detected 102 X-ray sources in the energy band from 0.3 to 8.0 keV, of which 39 of them are associated with the cluster as evidenced by their appropriate magnitudes and colors from Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry. In the reference paper, the authors extend the X-ray luminosity distribution (XLD) of the Alpha Persei cluster for M dwarfs, to add to the XLD found for hotter dwarfs from spatially extensive surveys of the whole cluster by ROSAT. Some of the hotter stars are identified as a background, possible slightly older group of stars at a distance of approximately 500 pc. Alpha Per is a young open cluster, found to be 50 Myr old from its upper main sequence turnoff morphology (Meynet et al. 1993, A&AS, 98, 477). More recently, Stauffer et al. (1999, ApJ, 527, 219) have found an age of 90 Myr from the low mass lithium depletion boundary. In addition to being relatively nearby (170 pc; Randich et al. 1996, A&A, 305, 785), the Alpha Per cluster is also lightly reddened (E(B - V ) = 0.09 mag; Meynet et al. 1993), making the data interpretation relatively robust. A fraction of the Alpha Per cluster was observed by XMM-Newton as part of the Mission Scientist Guaranteed Time (Pallavicini et al., 2004, MmSAI, 75, 434). A 60-ks observation was obtained on 2000 September 5 using the EPIC MOS and PN cameras on board XMM-Newton with a pointing centered at RA: 3<sup>h</sup> 26<sup>m</sup> 16<sup>s</sup> and Dec: 48<sup>o</sup> 50<sup>m</sup> 29<sup>s</sup> (J2000.0). This table was created by the HEASARC in June 2014 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/AJ/145/143">CDS Catalog J/AJ/145/143</a> files table1.dat and table2.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

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