| Abstract : | Dark nebulae, such as the ones described by Lynds (1962), have been relatively unexplored in the optical due to the large extinction towards these regions. Lynds cataloged these dark nebulae into 6 opacity classes on the basis of their visual appearance in the National Geographic-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey images. Polarimetry is a good way to probe magnetic field structures (Davis & Greenstein, 1951) in dark clouds. Polarimetric observations of the stars in the line of sight through the dark nebulae/molecular cloud would help to probe the magnetic field structure in the cloud and along the line of sight (Lazarian, 2007). Studies of the dark globule using optical polarimetry and infrared photometry help us to understand the extinction and magnetic field properties of the region. Infrared polarimetry would be even more appropriate in regions of high extinction. Thereby, more stars can be detected and the phenomena like polarisation and extinction which depend upon the distribution of the interstellar dust and the interstellar magnetic field can be studied in detail. The presentation will describe the star-forming molecular clouds and the different observational studies which help to decipher their properties and the properties of interstellar dust. |
