Observations at near Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory , Chile ( proposal ESO N°59.D-0719 ) and mid-infrared wavelengths ( 1-18 \mu m ) of SGR 1806-20 suggest that it is associated with a cluster of giant massive stars which are enshrouded in a dense cloud of dust .
The centre of the best sky position of the gamma-ray source ( Hurley et al . [ 1999 ] ) lies on top of the dust cloud at only 7 arcsec ( \sim  0.5 pc at a distance of 14.5 kpc ) from the star cluster , and 12 arcsec ( \sim  0.85 pc ) from a Luminous Blue Variable Star ( LBV ) which had been proposed to be associated with the SGR ( Kulkarni et al . [ 1995 ] ) .
The bright cloud of interstellar gas and dust observed with ISO ( Infrared Space Observatory ) is probably the birth site of the cluster of massive stars , the LBV star , and the progenitor of the soft gamma-ray repeater pulsar .
The presence of such a young star formation region is compatible with the current interpretation of soft gamma-ray repeaters as young neutron stars .
The SGR 1806-20 compact source is unlikely to form a bound binary system with any of the infrared luminous massive stars , since no flux variations in the near-infrared were detected from the latter in an interval of 4 years .
The ISO observations were made over two epochs , 11 days before and 2 hours after a soft gamma-ray burst detected with the Interplanetary Network , and they show no enhanced mid-infrared emission associated to the high energy activity of the SGR .