Young stellar clusters in nearby spiral galaxies

The detection and study of very young stellar clusters in disk galaxies are often disturbed by dust in their spiral arms. The K-band, with its low dust attenuation, offers a much better and unbiased view of such stellar clusters. We present the statistics of young clusters in a sample of 46 nearby spiral galaxies, with linear resolutions of better than 100 pc, for which deep K-band photometry is available. Many grand-design spirals (25% of the sample) show strong concentration of young stellar clusters in their arm regions. The clusters have absolute magnitudes M-K up to -15.5(m). Both the maximum absolute magnitude and the total number of clusters correlate with the total luminosity of the host galaxy and the relative amplitude of its two-armed spiral pattern.