ar X iv : a st ro - p h / 96 10 10 4 v 1 1 5 O ct 1 99 6 A photometric study of NGC 458

The observation of stellar clusters is a relevant tool in testing the goodness of stellar evolution theories. In particular when intermediate-mass stars (about 2-9 M⊙) are investigated, one has to observe young clusters. Unfortunately such a clusters in our galaxy, in general, contains too few stars to allow significant tests to stellar theoretical models, so that it is useful to study young populous clusters in near galaxies; in particular in SMC one of the richest cluster is NGC 458, which appears poorly investigated. In fact there is no direct measurement of his metallicity or reddening, and the estimations of the age (see Hodge (1983), Elson & Fall (1985) and Stothers & Chin (1992)) ranges from 50 to 130 Myr. The only previous photometric work on this cluster is due to Arp (1959) who obtained a photographic BV CM diagram either of the cluster core and of the surrounding field. For this reasons, NGC 458 was observed and a new CMD for this cluster was derived. In the following we will present our preliminary results on NGC 458, giving evaluation for metallicity, reddening and age of this cluster.