There are seven metal-poor globular-cluster-like star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud that contain RR Lyrae stars. The age dispersion among these clusters tells us about the duration of the first burst of star formation in the LMC and the age difference between them and the Galactic globulars will tell us about the difference in the "birth dates" of the two galaxies.

I am PI for an HST program in which we obtained F555W and F814W images in the seven RR Lyrae containing LMC clusters. The data will be used to answer the questions posed above.



WFPC2 Based CMD for NGC 2257

An example of the data quality. These are the final magnitudes and colors for objects on the WF chip that is centered on the cluster.