NGC 7714 owes its brightness in the UV to a few low extinction lines of sight towards young stars. The different extinction estimates obtained from different indicators result naturally from the coexistence of populations with various ages and obscurations. The near-IR continuum image looks smoothest, as a consequence of lower sensitivity to extinction and of a larger contribution of old stars. We compare the nuclear properties of NGC 7714 with results from studies in larger apertures. We emphasize that the global properties of starburst galaxies are the result of the averaging over many lines of sight with diverse properties in terms of obscuration and stellar ages.
Age dating starbursts is an exercise with many caveats.
In many cases, better starburst theories will be needed before the improvement of empirical timelines becomes crucial. Stochastic Fluctuations in the Spectrophotometric Properties of Star Clusters. 211 Integrated spectrophotometric properties of stellar systems are intrinsically dispersed due to the stochastic nature of the small numbers of bright stars they contain. Among clusters, only the most massive ones can be used individually for comparison with the mean properties predicted by population synthesis calculations. The appropriate minimal masses depend, among others, on the waveband or colour index studied and on age.