Galactic open star clusters play diverse roles as probes of astrophysical phenomena on
many scales. As gravitationally bound stellar systems of from several hundred to tens of
thousands of stars they are useful laboratories for the investigation of issues of stellar
evolution and nucleosynthesis, stellar interactions and dynamical processes, and star
formation. Since open clusters exhibit a wide range of properties and are found at all ages
and almost all locations in the galactic disk, when looked at as a system, they are excellent�…