An analysis of the most distant cataloged open clusters

Context. Several studies have been presented in the last few years applying some kind of automatic processing of data to estimate the fundamental parameters of open clusters. These parameters are then employed in larger scale analyses, for example the structure of the Galaxy’s spiral arms. The distance is one of the most straightforward parameters to estimate, yet enormous differences can still be found among published data. This is particularly true for open clusters located more than a few kiloparsecs away. Aims. We cross-matched several published catalogs and selected the 25 most distant open clusters (> 9000 pc). We then performed a detailed analysis of their fundamental parameters, with emphasis on their distances, to determine the agreement between the catalogs and our estimates. Methods. Photometric and astrometric data from the Gaia EDR3 survey was employed. The data were processed with our own membership analysis code, pyUPMASK, and our package for the automatic estimation of fundamental cluster parameters, ASteC