First spectroscopic evidence for carbon stars outside the Local Group:   properties of a massive star cluster in NGC 7252
  We present near-IR spectroscopy of the massive intermediate age star cluster W3 in the merger remnant galaxy NGC 7252, obtained with the NTT telescope. This cluster has an age when the integrated near-IR properties of a stellar population are dominated by the cool and luminous AGB stars. We compare the data with instantaneous curst model predictions from new evolutionary synthesis models that include: (1) the computation of the evolution through the TP-AGB for low- and intermediate-massive stars, with the initial mass and metallicity dependent formation of carbon stars; (2) spectroscopic data from a new stellar library in which differences betwenn static giants, vriable O-rich TPAGB stars and carbon stars are accounted for. The comparison of the data to the models clearly shows that carbon stars are present: for the first time, carbon star spectral features are thus detected directly outside the Local Group (abriged) 
M. Mouhcine (UCLA, Strasbourg), A. Lancon (Strasbourg), C. Leitherer   (STScI), S. Silva (ESO), M.A.T. Groenewegen (ESO, Leuven)