Flamingos near-infrared study of the Serpens cloud
Priya Hasan

Muffakham Jah College of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad 500 007, India

Abstract. We present the results of a deep near-infrared imaging survey of the Serpens Cloud made with FLAMINGOS at the 2.1 m telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. We study the distribution of young embedded sources using the nearest neighbor method applied to a carefully selected sample of near-infrared excess (NIRX) stars that trace the latest episode of star formation in the complex. Our analysis finds the existence of six clusters, of which three are new in the molecular cloud. We determined a median age for the cluster to be 1-2 Myr at a mean distance of 300 pc.

Key words:embedded star clusters: Serpens -- NIR photometry -- Spitzer -- 2 mass