Title:Near-Infrared View of the Open Clusters as Tracers of the Galactic Spiral Structure


Abstract:
We present the first results of a project to study the stellar population properties of Galactic open clusters 
using near-infrared data. Publicly available 2MASS database is used during the initial part of the project, but 
the developed methodology could be applied for any of the existing or upcoming NIR surveys. A particular 
advantage of the 2MASS is the uniform all sky coverage. Clusters with well known properties are used to 
develop and test our method. They also provide an independent test of some recent stellar evolution codes 
for young stellar population ages. Open clusters are the ideal test particles to trace the spiral structure of 
the Galaxy. Their importance will increase even further once deeper large area NIR surveys become 
available.