Spectroscopy in Galactic globular clusters

However more than 50% of these clusters have no spectroscopic measure of their metallicity. In this context, this work provides new radial velocities and abundances for twenty Milky Way globular clusters which lack or have poorly known values for these quantities.

The radial velocities and abundances are derived from spectra obtained at the CaII triplet using the FORS2 imager and spectrograph at the VLT, calibrated with spectra of red giants in a number of clusters with well determined abundances. For about half of the clusters in our sample we present signifiant revisions of the existing velocities or abundances, or both.