MOMENT ANALYSIS APPLIED TO LMC STAR-CLUSTERS

Statistical moment-based ellipse fitting is performed on observations of Large Magellanic Cloud clusters, confirming that trends are evident in their position angles and ellipticities, as had been reported in the literature. Artificial cluster images with known parameters are generated, and subjected to the same analysis techniques, revealing apparent trends caused by stochastic processes. Caution should therefore be exercised in the interpretation of observational trends in young LMC clusters.