Young Stellar Objects in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) has played vital roles in complementing space-based observatories to maximize their scientific yields. In the past three decades, I have used CTIO observations to aid in the interpretation of X-ray, ultraviolet, gamma-ray, and infrared observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). In this presentation, I will show how CTIO observations made a difference in the analysis of Spitzer Space Telescope observations of young stellar objects (YSOs) in the LMC. With a higher angular resolution, CCD images taken with the CTIO Blanco 4m telescope can resolve nearby galaxies, small clusters, and compact WI regions that appear to be point sources in Spitzer images; furthermore, ISPI J and K-s images taken with the Blanco telescope reveal near-IR excesses that can be used to confirm YSO candidates identified from their mid-IR excesses. In the near future, CTIO's Dark Energy Camera will survey the LMC, and the data can be used to search for pre-main sequence stars, extending the study of on-going star formation to lower stellar masses.