Abundances of red giants in NGC 6218

We analyzed stars in the magnitude range from about 1mag below the bump to the tip of the Red Giant Branch. The average metallicity we derive is [Fe/H]=-1.31+/-0.004+/-0.028dex (random and systematic errors, respectively), with a very small star-to-star scatter (rms=0.033dex), from moderately high-resolution Giraffe spectra.

This is the first extensive spectroscopic abundance analysis in this cluster. Our results indicate that NGC 6218 is very homogeneous as far as heavy elements are concerned. On the other hand, light elements involved in the well known proton-capture reactions of H-burning at high temperature, such as O and Na, show large variations, anticorrelated with each other, at all luminosities along the red giant branch.