No Arabic abstract
In this work I communicate the detection of a new Galactic Wolf-Rayet star (WR60a) in Centaurus. The H- and K-band spectra of WR60a, show strong carbon near-infrared emission lines, characteristic of Wolf-Rayet stars of the WC5-7 sub-type. Adopting mean absolute magnitude M$_K$ and mean intrinsic ($J-K_S$) and ($H-K_S$) colours, it was found that WR60a suffer a mean visual extinction of 3.8$pm$1.3 magnitudes, being located at a probable heliocentric distance of 5.2$pm$0.8 Kpc, which for the related Galactic longitude (l=312) puts this star probably in the Carina-Sagittarius arm at about 5.9 kpc from the Galactic center. I searched for clusters in the vicinity of WR60a, and in principle found no previously known clusters in a search radius region of several tens arc-minutes. The detection of a well isolated WR star induced us to seek for some still unknown cluster, somewhere in the vicinity of WR60a. From inspection of 5.8$mu$m and 8.0$mu$m Spitzer/IRAC GLIMPSE images of the region around the new WR star, it was found strong mid-infrared extended emission at about 13.5 arcmin south-west of WR60a. The study of the the H-K$_S$ colour distribution of point sources associated with the extended emission, reveals the presence of a new Galactic cluster candidate probably formed by at least 85 stars.
We report the discovery of a new Wolf-Rayet star in the direction of Cygnus. The star is strongly reddened but quite bright in the infrared, with J = 9.22, H = 8.08 and K = 7.09 (2MASS). On the basis of its H + K spectrum, we have classified WR 142a a WC8 star. We have estimated its properties using as a reference those of other WC8 stars in the solar neighbourhood as well as those of WR 135, whose near-infrared spectrum is remarkably similar. We thus obtain a foreground reddening of A(V) = 8.1 mag, M(J) = -4.3, log(L/Lo) = 5.0 - 5.2, R = 0.8 Ro, T = 125,000 K, M = 7.9 - 9.7 Mo, and a mass loss of (1.4 - 2.3)e-05 Mo/yr. The derived distance modulus, DM = 11.2 +/- 0.7 mag, places it in a region occupied by several OB associations in the Cygnus arm, and particularly in the outskirts of both Cygnus OB2 and Cygnus OB9. The position in the sky alone does not allow us to unambiguously assign the star to either association, but based on the much richer massive star content of Cygnus OB2 membership in this latter association appears to be more likely.
We report the first-ever discovery of an extragalactic Wolf-Rayet (WR)star with Spitzer. A new WR star in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) was revealed via detection of its circumstellar shell using 24 {mu}m images obtained in the framework of the Spitzer Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud (SAGE-LMC). Subsequent spectroscopic bservations with the Gemini South resolved the central star in two components, one of which is a WN3b+abs star, while the second one is a B0V star. We consider the lopsided brightness distribution over the circumstellar shell as an indication that the WR star is a runaway and use this interpretation to identify a possible parent cluster of the star.
I report the discovery of two new Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars in Circinus via detection of their C, N and He Near-Infrared emission lines, using ESO-NTT-SOFI archival data. The H- and K-band spectra of WR67a and WR67b, indicate that they are Wolf-Rayet stars of WN6h and WC8 sub-types, respectively. WR67a presents a weak-lined spectrum probably reminiscent of young hydrogen rich main-sequence stars such as WR25 in Car OB1 and HD97950 in NGC3603. Indeed, this conclusion is reinforced by the close morphological match of the WR67a H- and K-band spectra with that for WR21a, a known extremely massive binary system. WR67b is probably a non-dusty WC8 Wolf-Rayet star that has a estimated heliocentric distance of 2.7(0.9) kpc, which for its Galactic coordinates, puts the star probably in the near portion of the Scutum-Centaurus arm.
We report the discovery of a new transition type Wolf-Rayet (WR) WN/C star in the Galaxy. According to its coordinates (R.A., Dec)J2000 = 18h51m39.7s, -05d34m51.1s, and the distance (7.11 kpc away from Earth) inferred from the second Gaia, data release, its found that WR 121-16 is located in the Far 3 kpc Arm, and it is 3.75 kpc away from the Galactic Center. The optical spectra obtained by the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and the 2.16 m telescope, both located at the Xinglong Observatory in China, indicate that this is a WR star of the transitional WN7o/WC subtype. A current stellar mass of about 7.1 M_solar, a mass-loss rate of M_dot = 10^(-4.97) M_solar/yr, a bolometric luminosity of log L/L_solar = 4.88, and a stellar temperature of T_* = 47 kK are derived, by fitting the observed spectrum with a specific Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model. The magnitude in V-band varies between 13.95 and 14.14 mag, while no period is found. Based on the optical spectra, the time domain data, and the indices of the astrometric solution of the Gaia data, WR 121-16 is likely a transitional WN/C single star rather than a WN+WC binary.
In a search for new Galactic planetary nebulae from our systematic scans of the Anglo-Australian Observatory/United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope (AAO/UKST) Halpha survey of the Southern Galactic Plane, we have identified a Pop I Wolf-Rayet star of type WN7h associated with an unusual ring nebula that has a fractured rim. We present imagery in Halpha, the 843-MHz continuum from the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST), the mid-infrared from the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX), and confirmatory optical spectroscopy of the character of the nebula and of its central star. The inner edge of the Halpha shell shows gravitational instabilities with a well-defined wavelength around its complete circumference.