Deep [ITAL]Hubble[/ITAL] [ITAL]Space[/ITAL] [ITAL]Telescope[/ITAL] Observations of Star Clusters in NGC 1275

We present an analysis of compact star clusters in deep HST/WFPC2 images ofNGC 1275. B and R band photometry of roughly 3000 clusters shows a bimodalityin the B-R colors, suggesting that distinct old and young cluster populationsare present. The small spread in the colors of the blue clusters is consistentwith the hypothesis that they are a single age population, with an inferred ageof 0.1 to 1 Gyr. The luminosity function shows increasing numbers of blueclusters to the limit of our photometry, which reaches several magnitudes pastthe turnover predicted if the cluster population were identical to currentGalactic globulars seen at a younger age. The blue clusters have a spatialdistribution which is more centrally peaked than that of the red clusters. Theindividual clusters are slightly resolved, with core radii <~ 0.75 pc if theyhave modified Hubble profiles. We estimate the specific frequencies of the oldand young populations and discuss the uncertainties in these estimates. We findthat the specific frequency of the young population in NGC 1275 is currentlylarger than that of the old population and will remain so as the youngpopulation evolves, even if the majority of the low mass clusters areeventually destroyed. If the young population formed during a previous merger,this suggests that mergers can increase the specific frequency of globulars ina galaxy. However, the presently observed young population likely contains toofew clusters to have a significant impact on the overall specific frequency asit will be observed in the future.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, to be published in the Astronomical Journa