A NOTE ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PALOMAR 2

The distance and structural properties of the remote anticenter globular cluster Palomar 2 are deduced from a preliminary analysis of a deep V photographic plate of the cluster. Its apparent distance modulus is estimated to be (n - M)V = 20.1 plus or minus 0.4 with a heavy foreground reddening E(B - V) = 1.27 plus or minus 0.07, and hence a galactocentric distance of 26 kpc. New star counts from the plate material are made to derive its tidal radius and central concentration parameters, and thus an approximate value for its perigalactic distance. Palomar 2 is much more compact than other clusters at similar distances, suggesting that it is now being seen near the outer end of a highly eccentric (e greater than 0.8) orbit.