Program: GS-2006A-Q-17

We propose to study the population of heavily embedded MYSOs we discovered in the galactic star forming regions W51A IRS1-3. These objects are luminous sources in the K band, but they are not detected at shorter wavelengths, similarly to NGC3576 #60, valuable information can only be obtained from MIR techniques. The main goal of this project is derive the spectral types (and hence the masses) of the underlying stars, by measuring their fluxes in the MIR. Additionally, the high resolution images delivered by T-ReCS at Gemini will allow us to build the map of extinction and estimate the color temperature of the dust toward each source.