Color–magnitude diagram and color distribution for all colors of the field l = 0.00, b = 1.00. The lower panel shows the observed color–magnitude diagram, the middle panel the synthetic color–magnitude diagram with the best-fitted extinction, and the upper panel shows the histograms in the color distribution. The red color scale (lower panel) shows the observations (noted as “VVV or GLIMPSE” in the title of the inner color bar) while the blue color scale shows the simulated data (noted as “model”). The dashed lines show the completeness limit. The color bar inside the color–magnitude diagram shows the number of stars of each corresponding dataset.