Another massive (at least 10,000 solar masses) young cluster, to add to our existing list of
very massive and
young star clusters in our Galaxy (as per the recent
NGC 3603 thread in the IIS Science Forum), is Trumpler 14, which was beautifully imaged in the near-infrared by SkyViking (see his post "Carina Nebula in Optical and Near Infrared" in the IIS Imaging forum).
Rolf's very-near-infrared image of this cluster shows a lot more stars than his optical image of this cluster; this is dramatic proof that imaging with standard CCDs at 700 to 1000nm can "dig out" meaningful extra detail which is hidden by moderate amounts of interstellar dust. (see also his NIR image of the Orion Nebula, that shows massively more faint stars than an optical image)
Trumpler 14 is apparently associated with the Eta Carinae Nebula, but its exact distance has been controversial in the literature.
Here is a near-infrared image of Trumpler 14 (in the J & H & K bandpasses) which is associated with this paper: (2007), Astronomy and Astrophysics,
476, 199
As you can see, by comparing the relatively open structure of this very-massive & young Star Cluster with the strongly-centrally-concentrated structure of
NGC 3603, there seems to be more than one way to structure a massive and young star cluster!
(In fact, according to this paper, there
is a centrally concentrated core in Trumpler 14, but it is surrounded by a halo of stars.)
The aforementioned paper derives a total mass of 10,000 solar masses for this cluster, and suggests that this cluster is less than one million years old; this object is a youngster, in cosmic terms.
Here is the radial density profile of the Stellar Density of the stars in Trumpler 14, from this paper:
Trumpler 14 is still very centrally concentrated, but this cluster is not nearly as dense at its centre as
NGC 3603!
cheers,
Bad Galaxy Man
