A new CCD photometry of the halo cluster Palomar 13 is used to constru
ct a color - magnitude diagram in the Thuan-Gunn and the B, V photomet
ric systems(1). The color-magnitude diagram of the cluster shows as al
ready noted by Ortolani et al. (1985) an extremely poor red horizontal
branch and a very sparsely populated giant branch. Seven BSS candidat
es are identified in the field of Palomar 13. The age of the cluster d
etermined by fitting with the isochrones of Proffitt & Vanden Berg (19
91) and Bergbusch & Vanden Berg (1992) and by a differential compariso
n of the color-magnitude diagram with that of Pal 5 is 12 +/- 2 Gyr.