We provide a review of the current status of several topics on the ages,
distances, and mass functions of open clusters, with a particular emphasis on
illuminating the areas of uncertainty. Hipparcos has obtained parallaxes for
nearby open clusters that have expected accuracies much better than has been
previously achievable. By using the lithium depletion boundary method and
isochrone fitting based on much improved new theoretical evolutionary models
for low mass stars, it is arguable that we will soon have have much better age
scales for clusters and star-forming regions. With improved optical and near-IR
cameras, we are just now beginning to extend the mass function of open clusters
like the Pleiades into the regime below the hydrogen burning mass limit.
Meanwhile, observations in star-forming regions are in principle capable of
identifying objects down to of order 10 Jupiter masses.Comment: 13 pages, including 3 embedded figures (4 EPS files). To appear in
"11th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun," ed. R.
J. Garcia Lopez, R. Rebolo, and M. R. Zapatero Osori
