inspection of this figure reveals that the MS is narrow and well defined in the magnitude interval between the MS turn off and the MS knee, where the $m_{\rm F110W}-m_{\rm F160W}$ color width is nearly consistent with the broadening expected from observational errors. In contrast, the color distribution of MS stars fainter than the MS knee is significantly wider than what we expect from photometric errors alone, and the MS width ranges from $\sim 0.04$ mag for $m_{\rm F160W} \sim 19$ to more than 0.15 mag around $m_{\rm F160W} = 23$. The Hess diagram plotted in the inset reveals three MSs of low mass stars that run from the MS knee towards the bottom of the MS.

![NIR CMD of NGC6752. The Hess diagram highlights the region of the CMD where the three sequences are more evident.[]{data-label="fig:cmd"}](f1.ps){width="9.0cm"}

In Fig. \[fig:ASs\] we compare the observed CMD of NGC6752 with the simulated CMD derived from ASs. As discussed in Sect. \[subsec:ASs\], the latter comprises three stellar populations that are distributed along the fiducials of the three MSs and are colored red in Fig. \[fig:ASs\]. The comparison between the observations and the measured ASs, which are represented with black points, corroborates the conclusion 