UBVI photometry of NGC 7654 (M52)

The reddening across the cluster region is found to be variable with E(B-V) from 0.46mag to 0.80mag. The cluster is situated at a distance of 1380+/-70pc.

The colour magnitude diagrams show a large age spread in the ages. Star formation was biased towards relatively higher masses during the early phase of star formation whereas most of the low mass stars of the cluster were formed during the later phase. The star formation seems to have been a gradual process that proceeded sequentially in mass and terminated with the formation of most massive stars.