VLT and NTT observations of two EIS cluster candidates - Detection of the early-type galaxies sequence at z similar to 1

Optical data from the ESO VLT-UT1 Science Verification observations are com bined with near-infrared data from SOFI at the NTT to obtain optical-infrar ed color-magnitude diagrams for the objects in the fields of two EIS cluste r candidates. In both cases, evidence is found for a well-defined sequence of red galaxies that appear to be significantly more clustered than the bac kground population. These results suggest that the two systems are real phy sical associations. The (R - Ks), (I - Ks) and (J - Ks) colors of the red s equences are used, in conjunction with similar data for spectroscopically c onfirmed clusters, to obtain redshift estimates of z similar to 0.9 and z s imilar to 1.0 for these two systems. These results make these EIS cluster c andidates prime targets for follow-up spectroscopic observations to confirm their reality and to measure more accurately their redshift.