  Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet (UV) images of nine starburst galaxies
reveal them to be highly irregular, even after excluding compact sources
(clusters and resolved stars). Most (7/9) are found to have a similar intrinsic
effective surface brightnesses, suggesting that a negative feedback mechanism
is setting an upper limit to the star formation rate per unit area. All
starbursts in our sample contain UV bright star clusters indicating that
cluster formation is an important mode of star formation in starbursts. On
average about 20% of the UV luminosity comes from these clusters. The brightest
clusters, or super star clusters (SSC), are preferentially found at the very
heart of starbursts. The size of the nearest SSCs are consistent with those of
Galactic globular clusters. The luminosity function of SSCs is well represented
by a power law with a slope alpha ~ -2. There is a strong correlation between
the far infrared excess and the UV spectral slope. The correlation is well
modeled by a geometry where much of their dust is in a foreground screen near
to the starburst, but not by a geometry of well mixed stars and dust.
