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We perform a photometric analysis on deep, seeing-limited near-IR VLT imagesof the region NGC 346/N66 and a nearby control field of the SMC in order tolocate the centres of active high- and intermediate-mass star formation throughthe identification of near-IR bright objects as candidate stellar sources underformation.We use archived imaging data obtained with the high-resolution cameraISAAC at VLT of NGC 346/N66 and we construct the near-IR colour-magnitude (CMD)and colour-colour diagrams (C-CD) of all detected sources. We investigate thenature of all stellar populations in the observed CMDs, and we identify allstellar sources that show significant near-IR excess emission in the observedC-CD. We select, thus, the best candidates for being young stellar sources.Based on their near-IR colours we select 263 candidate young stellar sources.This sample comprises a variety of objects such as intermediate-mass PMS andHerbig Ae/Be stars and possibly massive YSOs, providing original near-IRcolours for them. The spatial distribution of the selected candidate sourcesshows that they are located along the dusty filamentary structures of N66 seenin mid- and far-IR dust emission and agrees very well with that of previouslydetected candidate YSOs and PMS stars. Our study provides an original accurateset of near-IR colours for candidate young stellar sources. While this addssignificant information on the star formation process in NGC 346/N66, it isstill necessary to reveal the exact nature of these objects, a process thatrequires the combination of multi-wavelength data, so that complete SpectralEnergy Distributions can be constructed for individual sources. This would be aquite important follow-up study to that presented here.

astronomy and astrophysics

Recent Star Formation in Low Metallicities. The Star-Forming Region NGC  346/N66 in the Small Magellanic Cloud from Near-Infrared VLT/ISAAC  Observations