Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2007
There are a few ways to estimate the number of massive open clusters expected in the disk of the Milky Way, such as the total star formation rate of the Galaxy, or the open cluster mass function extrapolated to include the entire Galaxy. Surprisingly, they give similar predictions: the Milky Way should contain about 100 clusters as massive as 30 Doradus. Are we seeing them? We look closely at these predictions and compare them to what has been found so far in our Galaxy. We present sophisticated image simulations our group is developing to estimate the selection biases faced by current infrared searches for these massive clusters.