Large-beam infrared observations of compact H II regions

Near-infrared observations were made of compact H II regions, using a 1.3 m telescope, three infrared photometers, and a large beam (of about one minute). Various techniques were used to calculate the near-infrared extinction, and the corrected flux densities were used to determine 2-25 micron fluxes by fitting the least-squares power law to the points. A mathematical formula and the 4.995-GHz high-resolution radio observations were used to estimate the Lyman-alpha power available to each source. Having corrected for line-of-sight extinction, the 2-25 micron luminosities were found to be approximately equal to or greater than the Lyman-alpha luminosities obtained from radio observations.