THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL      VOLUME 106, NUMBER 1, PAGE 220          JULY 1993

              PHOTOMETRIC STUDY OF THE OLD GALACTIC CLUSTER Be 31

                               HARRY H. GUETTER

         U.S. Naval Observatory, PO Box 1149, Flagstaff, Arizona 86002
                    Electronic mail: guetter@nofs.navy.mil


                                   ABSTRACT

    CCD photometry on the Johnson UBV and on the Kron-Cousins VI systems
    are presented for 732 stars in and near Be 31, an open cluster located
    towards the galactic anticenter.  The resultant color-magnitude
    diagrams indicate that the cluster is an old object.  From the
    color-color diagram, the reddening and metallicity parameters are
    determined to be E(B-V) = 0.13 mag and [Fe/H] = -0.4.  By comparing the
    cluster C-M diagrams with the VandenBerg isochrones, and by assuming a
    normal reddening law, a distance of 5.2 +/- 0.5 kpc and an age of 8 Gyr
    are derived.