INFRARED IMAGING OF IRAS SOURCES NEAR THE GALACTIC-CENTER

A number of IRAS sources in the direction of the Galactic Centre and suspected of being regions of recent or current star formation have been investigated by means of direct near-infrared imaging and limited spectroscopy in a further attempt to clarify their nature. Near-infrared counterparts to the IRAS sources are selected from the various objects in the images on the basis of their near-infrared colours, coincidence with the 3.5-mum sources of Glass, and general appearance. Photometry is derived from the images, and combined with the spectroscopy and with previously published results to determine whether indeed these sources are close to the Galactic Centre and whether they are young. In general, the sources have cool energy distributions and luminosities of early-type ZAMS stars. Most of them share the properties of young massive stars still embedded in dust cocoons, though two of them appear to be surrounded by a compact H II region. The new results generally confirm our earlier conclusion that star formation is ongoing in the vicinity of the Galactic Centre.