  We present CCD $UBV(I)_C$ observations obtained in the field of the
previously unstudied northern open clusters NGC 1582 and NGC 1663. For the
former, we also provide high-resolution spectra of the brightest stars and
complement our data with Two-Micron All-Sky-Survey (2MASS) near-infrared
photometry and with astrometric data from the Tycho-2 catalog. From the
analysis of all these data, we argue that NGC 1582 is a very poor, quite large
and heavily contaminated open cluster. It turns out to have a reddening
$E_{B-V} = 0.35 \pm 0.03$, to be situated $1100 \pm 100$ pc from the Sun and to
have an age of $300 \pm 100$ Myr. On the other hand, we were not able to
unambiguously clarify the nature of NGC 1663. By assuming it is a real cluster
and from the analysis of its photometric diagrams, we found a color excess
value $E_{B-V} = 0.20$, an intermediate age value ($\sim 2000$ Myr) and a
distance of about 700 pc. The distribution of the stars in the region however
suggests we are probably facing an open cluster remnant. As an additional
result, we obtained aperture photometry of three previously unclassified
galaxies placed in the field of NGC 1663 and performed a preliminary
morphological classification of them.
