You will be presented with the full text of a science research paper. Please write an abstract for this paper. Your response should include the abstract and no additional text.

Paper text:
whiting  1 ( whi b0200 - 03 , l = 161.62@xmath4 , b= -60.64@xmath4 ; j2000 @xmath5 = 2@xmath602@xmath757@xmath8 , @xmath9 = -3@xmath41510  ) was discovered by @xcite during a search for local group dwarf galaxies in the southern hemisphere .
a 1200 secs v - band image ( their fig .
4 ) reveals that this object is a star cluster very well resolved .
the authors comment that _ it is a cluster of blue stars with a distant galaxy cluster in the background_. this is probably the reason for which whiting  1 has later on classified as a galactic open cluster ( @xcite ) .
however its faintness and the particular location in the milky way in the anticenter direction at @xmath10 cast some doubts on its open cluster nature .
+ in this paper we provide new photometric data with the aim to clarify the cluster nature and to derive the first estimates of its fundamental parameters .
+ the layout of the paper is as follows .
2 illustrates the observation and reduction strategies .
an analysis of the geometrical structure and star counts in the field of the cluster are presented in sect .  3 , whereas a discussion of the color - magnitude diagrams ( cmd ) is performed in sect .
5 deals with the determination of clusters reddening , distance and age and , finally , sect .
6 summarizes our findings .
@xmath11 ccd @xmath0 observations were carried out with the eight ccd camera on - board the 1 . 0 m telescope at cerro tololo interamerican observatory ( ctio , chile ) , in the nights of december 15 to 16 , 2004 . with a pixel size of @xmath12 , and a ccd size of 512 @xmath13 512 pixels ,
this samples a @xmath14 field in the sky .
+ the details of the observations are listed in table  1 where the observed fields are reported together with the exposure times , the average seeing values and the range of air - masses during the observations . figs .
1 shows a 900 secs i band image of the area of whiting  1 . in the figure east is up , and north on the right .
+ the data have been reduced with the iraf packages ccdred , daophot , allstar and photcal using the point spread function ( psf ) method ( @xcite ) .
the two nights turned out to be photometric and very stable , and therefore we derived calibration equations for all the 130 standard stars observed during the two nights in the @xcite fields sa  95 - 41 , pg  0231 + 051 , rubin  149 , rubin  152 , t  phe and sa  98 - 670 ( see table  1 for details ) .
the calibration equations turned out of be of the form : + @xmath15 + @xmath16 + @xmath17 , + where @xmath0 are standard magnitudes , @xmath18 are the instrumental ones and @xmath19 is the airmass ; all the coefficient values are reported in table  2 .
the standard stars in these fields provide a very good color coverage .
the final _ r.m.s .
_ of the calibration are 0.049 , 0.034 and 0.033 for the b , v and i filter , respectively .
photometric errors have been estimated following @xcite .
it turns out that stars brighter than @xmath20 mag have internal ( allstar output ) photometric errors lower than 0.10  mag in magnitude and lower than 0.18  mag in color .
the final photometric catalog for whiting  1 ( coordinates , b , v and i magnitudes and errors ) consists of 1757 stars and are made available in electronic form at the webda site maintained by j .-
c . mermilliod .
@xcite report a preliminary estimate of whiting  1 diameter amounting to 1.2 arcmin . by inspecting fig
1 we can recognize that dias et al . estimate is surely a reasonable one . + since our photometry covers entirely the clusters area and part of the surroundings , we performed star counts to obtain an improved estimate of the clusters size .
+ we derived the surface stellar density by performing star counts in concentric rings around the clusters nominal center and then dividing by their respective surfaces .
poisson errors have also been derived and normalized to the corresponding surface .
poisson errors in the field star counts turned out to be very small , and therefore we are not going to show them . the final radial density profile for whiting  1 is shown in fig .  2 as a function of v magnitude .
the contribution of galactic disk field has been estimated by considering all the stars in the corresponding magnitude bin , located outside 1.6 arcmin from the cluster center , and by normalizing counts over the adopted area .
+ the cluster seems to be populated by stars of magnitude in the range @xmath21 , where it clearly emerges from the background . in this magnitude
range the radius is not larger than 0.5 arcmin . in conclusion
, we are going to adopt the value of 0.5 arcmin as whiting  1 radius throughout this paper .
this estimate is in good agreement with the value of 1.2 arcmin reported by @xcite for the cluster diameter .
in fig . 3 we present the cmds of whiting  1 for all the detected stars . in the left panel of the same figure
we show the cmd in the @xmath22 vs @xmath23 plane , whereas in the right panel we show the cmd in the @xmath22 vs @xmath24 plane .
these cmds are not very easy to be interpreted , due to the faintness of the stars .
however we can recognize a wide main sequence ( ms ) in both the cmds , extending from @xmath25 , where the turn off point ( to ) is located down to @xmath26 .
the upper part of the cmd is more confused .
it seems that a sub - giant branch ( sgb ) is actually present , and that the red giant branch ( rgb ) starts rising at @xmath27 , @xmath28 .
the rgb however is poorly populated .
a group of stars at @xmath29 , @xmath30 may indicate the presence of a clump .
+ better information can be derived from fig .  4 , where we show the cmds of whiting  1 as a function of the distance from the cluster nominal center .
here we consider only stars having errors in v - band lower than 0.15 mag ( see sect .  2 ) .
in the left panel all the stars are plotted , whereas in the middle panel we only plot the stars which lie within the cluster radius ( see sect  3 ) .
finally , in the right panel we plot the stars outside the cluster region , to show how the galactic field toward the cluster looks like .
+ interestingly , the ms in the middle panel gets much thinner , and we can locate the to at @xmath31 , @xmath32 . the rgb is scarcely populated and the presumed clump disappears .
most of the stars in the left panel located in the rgb region and in the red edge of the ms come from the field shown in the right panel . in conclusion ,
the overall shape of the cmd in the middle panel is reminiscent of an old cluster .
in this section we provide estimates of whiting  1 basic parameters . + we start deriving a first guess of the cluster reddening by using firb maps by @xcite .
we obtain e(b - v ) = 0.026 , a very low value as expected for a cluster located at high galactic latitude .
+ at this point , since we do not have any other information , we have to rely on a detailed comparison between the cmd morphology and theoretical isochrones . in the following analysis we are going to adopt the padova isochrones ( @xcite ) .
+ in fig .  5 and 6 we play with age and metallicity , trying to encounter the best overall fit of the cmd . + in details , in fig .  5 we keep the metallicity fixed to z=0.001 and change the age from 3.8 to 5.6 gyrs
. in both the cmd the best fit
is provided by the age of 4.8 gyrs ( dashed - dotted line ) which implies a reddening e(b - v)= 0.04 and e(v - i)=0.05 .
the older isochrone ( 5.6 gyr ) implies an untenable e(b - v ) = 0.00 , or slightly negative , while the youngest one ( 3.8 gyr ) implies a reddening e(b - v ) = 0.12 , which is still acceptable , but the overall fit of the red part of the cmd looks very poor . + on the other hand , in fig .
6 we keep the age of 4.8 gyr fixed and play with metallicity . in this case
the best fit is provided by z=0.001 .
the fit with a lower metal abundance is not so bad as well , while the larger metallicity isochrone poorly fits the cmd and implies a negative reddening .
+ from this exercise we infer that the cluster metal abundance is around z=0.001 and the age around 5 gyrs .
the best fit is therefore outlined in fig .  7 , and from this we derive a distance modulus @xmath33=18.4 and a reddening e(b - v)=0.04 .
as a consequence , we obtain a heliocentric distance of about 45 kpc .
the results we achieved are listed in detail in table  3 .
we have presented the first ccd @xmath0 photometric study of the star cluster whiting  1 .
the cmds we derive allow us to infer estimates of the cluster basic parameters , which are summarized in table  3 .
+ in detail , we find that :          the combination of age , position and metallicity makes whiting  1 a very puzzling object .
+ we can rule put the hypothesis of an old open cluster , because of the low metal content , and mostly beacuse of its positions .
+ the cluster bears some similarities with palomar  1 ( @xcite ) , an 8 gyr old globular cluster , and other transitional clusters like terzan  7 , ruprech  106 and others mentioned in @xcite . + following the kind of discussion by @xcite
, we here tentatively propose that whiting  1 is the milky way youngest globular cluster insofar known , although a clear explanation for its formation and evolution remains very challenging .
dias w.s . ,
alessi b.s .
, moitinho a. , lepine j.r.d . , 2002 ,   389 , 871 girardi l. , bressan a. , bertelli g. , chiosi c. , 2000 ,   141 , 371 landolt a.u . , 1992 ,   104
, 340 patat f. , carraro g. , 2001 ,   325 , 1591 rosenberg a. , saviane i. , piotto g. , aparicio a. , zaggia s. , 1998 ,   115 , 648 schlegel , d. , finkbeiner , d. , & davis , m. ,  , 1998 , 500 , 525 .
stetson p.b .
1987 ,   99 , 191 whiting a.b . , hau g.k.t .
, irwin m. , 2002 ,   141 , 123
we report on @xmath0 ccd photometry of a field centered in the region of the galactic star cluster whiting  1 down to @xmath1 . 
 this cluster has never been studied insofar , and we provide for the first time estimates of its fundamental parameters , namely , radial extent , age , distance and reddening . 
 whiting  1 turns out to be a compact star cluster with a diameter of about 1@xmath2 . 
 we find that the cluster is about 5 gyr old and has a probable metal abundance around [ fe / h]= -1.20 . 
 its position at @xmath3 and at a heliocentric distance of about 45 kpc makes the cluster a rather strange object , surely not a disk old open cluster , but perhaps the youngest halo globular cluster insofar known .