Discovering protostars and their host clusters via WISE

A hybrid JHK_s‑W₁W₂W₃W₄ high-spectral index (α) selection scheme was employed to identify (sub)-clusters of class I/f candidate protostars (YSOs) in WISE observations (the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer). n>10⁴ candidate YSOs were detected owing to WISE's advantageous all-sky spatial coverage, and a subsample (n∼200) of their heavily-obscured host (sub)clusters were correlated with the Avedisova (Astron. Rep. 46:193, 2002) and Dias et al. (Astron. Astrophys. 389:871, 2002) catalogs of star-forming regions. Forthcoming observations from the VVV/UKIDSS surveys shall facilitate the detection of additional protostars and bolster efforts to delineate the Galactic plane, since the campaigns aim to secure deep JHK_s photometry for a pertinent fraction of the WISE targets lacking 2MASS detections, and to provide improved data for YSOs near the limits of the 2MASS survey.