A Search for Obscured Globular Clusters

Abstract

It has been estimated that up to several tens of globular clusters in our Galaxy remain undiscovered, because they are hidden by the dust. Most of those clusters are expected to be in the bulge area, but some may be anywhere in the galactic plane. This search is based on the use of IRAS catalogs as candidate lists for the obscured globular clusters. It was found that the properties of detected known clusters are sufficiently distinct for a meaningful sifting through the PSC. A sequence of statistical “filters”, described below, was applied on the PSC, until a couple of hundred most promising candidates were found in the bulge.