Related papers: The Ionized Nebula surrounding the Red Supergiant …
The massive red supergiant (RSG) W26 in Westerlund 1 is one of a growing number of RSGs shown to have winds that are ionized from the outside in. The fate of this dense wind material is important for models of second generation star…
We report new 5.5 GHz radio observations of the massive star cluster Westerlund 1, taken by the Australia Telescope Compact Array, detecting nine of the ten yellow hypergiants (YHGs) and red supergiants (RSGs) within the cluster. Eight of…
Recent JWST observations towards Westerlund 1 revealed extensive nebular emission associated with the cluster. Given the age of the region and proximity of that material to massive stars it cannot be primordial star forming gas and the…
We report on the detection of a previously unknown extended low-density nebula of very high temperature and excitation, TR001507.7-391206, located above the midplane of NGC55. The nebular emission line spectrum, in which HeII is present, is…
The blue supergiant Sher 25 is surrounded by an asymmetric, hourglass-shaped circumstellar nebula. Its structure and dynamics have been studied previously through high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy, and it appears dynamically similar…
The Galactic open cluster Westerlund 1 (Wd 1) represents the ideal local template for extragalactic young massive star clusters, because it is currently the only nearby young cluster which reaches a mass of around 10^5 Msun. The proximity…
The Galactic open cluster Westerlund 1 was found only a few years ago to be much more massive than previously thought, with evidence suggesting its mass to be in excess of ~10^5 Msun, in the range spanned by young extragalactic star…
SBW1 is a B supergiant surrounded by a ring nebula that is a nearby twin of SN 1987A. We present images and spectra of SBW1 obtained with HST, Spitzer, and Gemini South. HST images of SBW1 do not exhibit long Rayleigh-Taylor fingers, which…
II Zw 40 is a starburst dwarf and merger product, and holds a radio-infrared supernebula excited by thousands of embedded OB stars. We present here observations of three aspects of the supernebula: maps of the K and KU radio continuum that…
Current mass-loss rate estimates imply that main sequence winds are not sufficient to strip away the H-rich envelope to yield Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. The rich transitional population of Westerlund 1 (Wd 1) provides an ideal laboratory to…
Observational studies suggest that many OB stars are found within binary systems which may be expected to interact during their lifetimes. Significant mass transfer or merger of both components will modify evolutionary pathways,…
We report the results of deep H-alpha imaging of the ionized gas surrounding the low-redshift (z=0.0638) quasar MR 2251-178 using the TAURUS Tunable Filter (TTF) on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Our observations reach a 2-sigma detection…
Massive stars exhibit spectroscopic and photometric variability over a wide range of timescales. However the physical mechanisms driving this behaviour remain poorly understood. Westerlund 1 presents an ideal laboratory for studying these…
In this paper we report the identification of two new Galactic O2 If*/WN6 stars (WR20aa and WR20c), in the outskirt of the massive young stellar cluster Westerlund 2. The morphological similarity between the near-infrared spectra of the new…
We present Cloudy modeling of infrared emission lines in the Wolf-Rayet (WR) nebula N76 caused by one of the most luminous and hottest WR stars in the low metallicity Small Magellanic Cloud. We use spatially resolved mid-infrared…
We use deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging to study stellar populations in the outer halo of the spiral galaxy M96, located in the dynamically active Leo I galaxy group. Our imaging targets two fields at a projected distance of 50 kpc from…
The planetary nebula SuWt 2 (PN G311.0+02.4), is an unusual object with a prominent, inclined central emission ellipse and faint bipolar extensions. It has two A-type stars in a proven binary system at the centre. However, the radiation…
We report the discovery of a small cluster of massive stars embedded in a NIR nebula in the direction of the IRAS15411-5352 point source, which is related to the alleged planetary nebula W16-185. The majority of the stars present large NIR…
Red supergiants (RSGs) are a He-burning phase in the evolution of moderately high mass stars (10-25 solar masses). The evolution of these stars, particularly at low metallicities, is still poorly understood. The latest-type RSGs in the…
Westerlund 2 (Wd2) is the central ionizing star cluster of the \ion{H}{2} region RCW~49 and the second most massive young star cluster (${\rm M} = (3.6 \pm 0.3)\times 10^4\,{\rm M}_\odot$) in the Milky Way. Its young age ($\sim2\,$Myr) and…