We report the discovery of three optical open clusters in the Milky Way .
Two clusters are in Scutum ( Cluster 1 at \ell = 18.44 ^ { \circ } and b = -0.42 ^ { \circ } , and Cluster 2 at \ell = 19.60 ^ { \circ } and b = -1.02 ^ { \circ } ) , thus projected not far from the Galactic center direction , and the other is in Canis Major ( Cluster 3 at \ell = 235.61 ^ { \circ } and b = -4.10 ^ { \circ } ) , near the anti-center direction .
Cluster 3 is less populous than Clusters 1 and 2 , but presents evidence of being a physical system .
The objects were found optically by inspecting maps obtained from the Guide Star Catalogue and images from the Digitized Sky Survey .
No previous identification of cluster has been reported in each area so far .
The analysis was carried out with 2MASS photometry in J and H. For Cluster 1 we derive an age of t = 25 \pm 5 Myr , a reddening \mbox { $ E ( B - V ) $ } = 2.18 \pm 0.03 and a distance from the Sun \mbox { $ d _ { \odot } $ } = 1.64 \pm 0.19 kpc ; for Cluster 2 , t = 500 \pm 100 Myr , \mbox { $ E ( B - V ) $ } = 0.91 \pm 0.03 and \mbox { $ d _ { \odot } $ } = 2.19 \pm 0.21 kpc ; finally for Cluster 3 , t = 32 - 100 Myr , \mbox { $ E ( B - V ) $ } = 0.94 \pm 0.03 and \mbox { $ d _ { \odot } $ } = 3.93 \pm 0.35 kpc .
Luminosity and mass functions are derived for Clusters 1 and 2 which , in turn , allowed us to estimate their observed masses as 147 \mbox { $ M _ { \odot } $ } and 89 \mbox { $ M _ { \odot } $ } , respectively .
Estimated total masses , by extrapolating the mass functions to 0.08 \mbox { $ M _ { \odot } $ } , amount to 382 \mbox { $ M _ { \odot } $ } and 614 \mbox { $ M _ { \odot } $ } , for the two clusters .
Cluster 3 has an observed mass of \sim 55 \mbox { $ M _ { \odot } $ } .
The present results indicate that further searches in the optical might still reveal new open clusters , and more so in infrared bands .