Young star clusters (YSCs) with resolved stellar populations are well suited for studying star-cluster formation. In most cases, the (pre-main-sequence) stellar populations found in the YSCs are coeval with an intrinsic age spread of up to 1Myr. Such observations can be understood as the YSCs having formed in one burst, which star formation was truncated by stellar feedback. The recent discovery that the colour-magnitude diagram of the Orion Nebula Clusters (ONC) contains three well defined age-separated populations appears to shatter this model. The implication is that the ONC formed in three bursts, with star formation still on-going in the last burst. We present new observational results focusing on the three populations in the ONC using OmegaCAM photometry and Gaia DR2 measurements. We also describe a theoretical model which may explain these observations by an interplay between stellar feedback and cluster dynamics.

In this project, we investigate the effects of magnetic activity on the Lithium Depletion Boundary (LDB) to recalibrate the measured ages for star clusters, using the open cluster Blanco 1 as a pilot study. We apply the LDB technique on low-mass Pre-Main-Sequence (PMS) stars to derive an accurate age for Blanco 1, and we consider the effect of magnetic activity on this inferred age. Although observations have shown that magnetic activity directly affects stellar radius and temperature, most PMS models do not include the effects of magnetic activity on stellar properties. Since the lithium abundance of a star depends on its radius and temperature, we expect that LDB ages are affected by magnetic activity. After empirically accounting for the effects of magnetic activity, we find the age of Blanco 1 to be ~100 Myr, which is ~30 Myr younger than the standard LDB age of ~130 Myr.

We study the star formation history of the galactic young open cluster NGC 6231 using new, deep, wide-field BVRI imaging. Contrary to previous suggestions, we do not find a lack of low-mass cluster members; our derived mass function is compatible with a Salpeter IMF. The star formation history of NGC 6231 appears to be bi-modal, with a first wave of star formation activity 3–5 Myr ago, followed by a new generation of stars forming ~ 1 Myr ago.