American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 1(610), p. 269-274, 2004
DOI: 10.1086/421513
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We present new and accurate Near-Infrared J and Ks-band data of the Large Magellanic Cloud cluster Reticulum. Data were collected with SOFI available at NTT and covering an area of approximately (5 x 5) arcmin^2 around the center of the cluster. Current data allowed us to derive accurate mean K-band magnitudes for 21 fundamental and 9 first overtone RR Lyrae stars. On the basis of the semi-empirical K-band Period-Luminosity-Metallicity relation we have recently derived, we find that the absolute distance to this cluster is 18.52 +- 0.005 (random) +- 0.117 (systematic). Note that the current error budget is dominated by systematic uncertainty affecting the absolute zero-point calibration and the metallicity scale. Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, ApJ accepted. Full resolution figure 1 on request (dallora@mporzio.astro.it)