The sample of known star clusters , the fundamental building blocks of galaxies , in the Milky Way is still extremely incomplete for objects beyond a distance of 1 – 2 kpc .
Many of the more distant and young clusters are compact and hidden behind large amounts of extinction .
We thus utilised the deep high resolution near infrared surveys UGPS and VVV to uncover so far unknown compact clusters and to analyse their properties .

Images of all objects in the area covered by these two surveys , and which are listed as Galaxy in SIMBAD have been inspected and 125 so far unknown stellar clusters and candidate clusters have been identified .
Based on the frequent associations with star formation indicators ( nebulosities , IRAS sources , H ii regions , masers ) we find that the typical cluster in our sample is young , at distances between 1 – 10 kpc and has a typical apparent radius of 25″ .
We suggest more systematic searches e.g .
at all positions of 2MASS extended sources to increase the completeness of the known cluster sample beyond distances of 2 kpc .