Spectroscopy of red giants in 12 open clusters

We combine this sample with 10 clusters from Cole and collaborators (2004MNRAS.347..367C) to investigate the CaII triplet line strengths and their relation to cluster metallicity and position along the red giant branch. We show that characterizing the stellar surface gravity using K_s_-band photometry (relative to the horizontal branch) taken from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey allows for metallicity measurements at least as precise as those derived using V- or I-band data.

This has the great advantage that uniform photometry and reliable astrometry are available for a large number of clusters. Using K_s_-band photometry also reduces the effect of differential reddening within a given cluster. We find no significant evidence for age or metallicity effects to the linear CaII triplet-metallicity relationship over the small range in magnitudes studied when homogeneous reference metallicities are used.