Stellar family in crowded, violent neighborhood proves to be surprisingly normal

This image of the Arches Cluster of young, massive stars was obtained with NACO on ESO's Very Large Telescope. The field of view is 28 arcseconds. North is up and east is to the left. This image is a composite of infrared images obtained through J, H and K filters. The stars appear as bright cores surrounded by faint diffuse halos. This is typical of images obtained by adaptive optics instruments