Luminosity and Mass Function of the Galactic open cluster NGC 2422

We present UBVRI photometry of the open cluster NGC 2422 (age ~10^8 yr) down to a limiting magnitude V(asymptotically equal to)19. These data are used to derive the Luminosity and Mass Functions and to study the cluster spatial distribution. By considering the color -magnitude diagram data and adopting a representative cluster main sequence, we obtained a list of candidate cluster members based on a photometric criterion. Using a reference field region and an iterative procedure, a correction for contaminating field stars has been derived in order to obtain the Luminosity and the Mass Functions in the M=0.4-3.5 M(circled dot operator) range. By fitting the spatial distribution, we infer that a non-negligible number of cluster stars lies outside our investigated region. We have estimated a correction to the Mass Function of the cluster in order to take into account the "missing" cluster stars. The Present Day Mass Function of NGC 2422 can be represented by a power-law of index (alpha)=3.07(plus-minus)0.08 (rms) - the Salpeter Mass Function in this notation has index (akpha)=2.35 - in the mass range 0.9 =< M/M(circled dot operator) =< 2.5. The index (alpha) and the total mass of the cluster are very similar to those of the Pleiades.