2000A&A...357..145C

We report on CCD photometry in the Johnson B, V and I passbands for 146 stars in a 9'x9' region around the southern aggregate NGC 6994 (C 2056-128), which appears in the Lynga (1987, Cat. VII/92) catalogue of open star clusters. We argue that this object is not really an open cluster, but simply a random enhancement of four bright stars above the background level. This stars sample includes HD 358033 and GSC 05778-0082, together with M 73, which is referred to as a binary or multiple star, but actually represents the whole asterism. Since NGC 6994 is not the first case (see for instance Carraro & Patat 1995), this raises the possibility that other open clusters may have been misclassified. We also suggest that NGC 6994 is unlikely to be an open cluster remnant (OCR).