2003A&A...411...83B

Three new obscured Milky Way clusters were detected as surface density peaks in the 2MASS point source catalog during our on-going search for hidden globular clusters and massive Arches-like star clusters. One more cluster was discovered serendipitously during a visual inspection of the candidates. The first deep J, H, and K_s imaging of the cluster [IBP2002] CC01 is presented. We estimated a cluster age of ∼1-3Myr, distance modulus of (m-M)₀=12.56±0.08mag (D=3.5kpc), and extinction of A_V∼7.7mag. We also derived the initial mass function slope for the cluster: Γ=-2.23±0.16 (Γ_Salpeter=-2.35). The integration over the initial mass function yielded a total cluster mass M_total≤1800±200M_☉. CC01 appears to be a regular, not very massive star cluster, whose formation has probably been induced by the shock front from the nearby HII region Sh2-228.