We present UBVRI and CT _ { 1 } T _ { 2 } photometry for fifteen catalogued open clusters of relative high brightness and compact appearance .
From these unprecedented photometric data sets , covering wavelengths from the blue up to the near-infrared , we performed a thorough assessment of their reality as stellar aggregates .
We statistically assigned to each observed star within the object region a probability of being a fiducial feature of that field in terms of its local luminosity function , colour distribution and stellar density .
Likewise , we used accurate parallaxes and proper motions measured by the Gaia satellite to help our decision on the open cluster reality .
Ten catalogued aggregates did not show any hint of being real physical systems ; three of them had been assumed to be open clusters in previous studies , though .
On the other hand , we estimated reliable fundamental parameters for the remaining five studied objects , which were confirmed as real open clusters .
They resulted to be clusters distributed in a wide age range , 8.0 \leq \log ( t yr ^ { -1 } ) \leq 9.4 , of solar metal content and placed between 2.0 and 5.5 kpc from the Sun .
Their ages and metallicities are in agreement with the presently known picture of the spatial distribution of open clusters in the Galactic disc .