Related papers: A Three-Decade Outburst of the LMC Luminous Blue V…

In the standard view of massive star evolution, luminous blue variables (LBVs) are transitional objects between the most massive O-type stars and Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. With short lifetimes, these stars should all be found near one another.…

I demonstrate that the two unexpected results in the local Universe: anomalous intrinsic (V-I)_0 colors of RR Lyrae stars and clump giants in the Galactic center, and very short distances to Magellanic Clouds inferred from clump giants, can…

We have used deep high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope ACS observations to image the cluster NGC 1978 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This high-quality photometric data set allowed us to confirm the high ellipticity (~0.30+-0.02) of this…

We report on the discovery of a luminous blue variable (LBV) lying ~7 pc in projection from the Quintuplet cluster. This source, which we call LBV G0.120-0.048, was selected for spectroscopy owing to its detection as a strong source of…

We present recent contemporaneous X-ray and optical observations of the Be/X-ray binary system A\,0535+26 with the \textit{Fermi}/Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and several ground-based observatories. These new observations are put into the…

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) Be/X-ray binary pulsar SXP6.85 = XTE J0103-728 underwent a large Type II outburst beginning on 2008 August 10. The source was consistently seen for the following 20 weeks (MJD = 54688 - 54830). We present…

The luminous blue variable (LBV) RMC143 is located in the outskirts of the 30~Doradus complex, a region rich with interstellar material and hot luminous stars. We report the $3\sigma$ sub-millimetre detection of its circumstellar nebula…

We report the fifth confirmed Luminous Blue Variable/S Doradus variable in M31. In 2006, J004526.62+415006.3 had the spectrum of hot Fe II emission line star with strong P Cygni profiles in the Balmer lines. In 2010, its absorption line…

Luminous blue variables (LBVs) are expected to play an important role in massive stellar evolution as well as being the progenitors of some of the most luminous supernovae known. In this paper we provide a multiwavelength study of the…

We have studied the very long-term temporal properties of the optical emission from Be X-ray binaries (BeX) in the Small Magellanic Cloud over a ~ 16 yr baseline, using light curves from the MACHO and OGLE databases. All the BeX in our…

We characterise the variability in the physical properties of the luminous blue variable AFGL2298 between 1989-2008. In conjunction with published data from 1989-2001, we have undertaken a long term (2001-2008) near-IR spectroscopic and…

We present period-luminosity relations for more than 3,200 red variable stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud observed in the second phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE-II). Periods of multiply-periodic light curve…

We report the discovery, based on an inspection of the OGLE-II database, of a group of blue variables in the Magellanic Clouds showing simultaneously two kinds of photometric variability: a short-term cyclic variability with typical…

We present observations of the massive transitional star W243 in Westerlund 1. We find an apparent spectral type of early-mid A from our data, in contrast to an earlier classification of B2I, made from data obtained in 1981. The concurrent…

We present a detailed study of McNeil's nebula (V1647 Ori) in its ongoing outburst phase starting from September 2008 to March 2013. Our 124 nights of photometric observations were carried out in optical V, R, I and near-infrared J, H, K…

Infrared photometry of the probable triple WC4(+O?)+O8I: Wolf-Rayet system HD 36402 (= BAT99-38) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) shows emission characteristic of heated dust. The dust emission is variable on a time-scale of years, with…

There is evidence that some red supergiants (RSGs) experience short lived phases of extreme mass loss, producing copious amounts of dust. These episodic outburst phases help to strip the hydrogen envelope of evolved massive stars,…

Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) are a class of massive blue supergiants exhibiting irregular and eruptive instability, sometimes accompanied by extreme mass loss. While they have often been considered to be a brief but very important…

The average of 14 recent measurements of the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) implies a true modulus of 18.50 +- 0.02 mag, and demonstrates a trend in the past 2 years of convergence toward a standard value. The distance…

One hundred and forty six long-period red variable stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) from the three year MOA project database were analysed. A careful periodic analysis was performed on these stars and a catalogue of their…