A SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF MASSIVE STARS IN M31 AND M33

Journal Article · Thu Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astronomical Journal (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-6256/152/3/62· OSTI ID:22662973

Massey, Philip; Neugent, Kathryn F.

We describe our spectroscopic follow-up to the Local Group Galaxy Survey (LGGS) photometry of M31 and M33. We have obtained new spectroscopy of 1895 stars, allowing us to classify 1496 of them for the first time. Our study has identified many foreground stars, and established membership for hundreds of early- and mid-type supergiants. We have also found nine new candidate luminous blue variables and a previously unrecognized Wolf–Rayet star. We republish the LGGS M31 and M33 catalogs with improved coordinates, and including spectroscopy from the literature and our new results. The spectroscopy in this paper is responsible for the vast majority of the stellar classifications in these two nearby spiral neighbors. The most luminous (and hence massive) of the stars in our sample are early-type B supergiants, as expected; the more massive O stars are more rare and fainter visually, and thus mostly remain unobserved so far. The majority of the unevolved stars in our sample are in the 20–40 M {sub ⊙} range.

• OSTI ID: 22662973
• Journal Information: Astronomical Journal (Online), Journal Name: Astronomical Journal (Online) Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 152; ISSN 1538-3881
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
CATALOGS
CLASSIFICATION
COORDINATES
GALAXIES
GIANT STARS
PHOTOMETRY
SPECTROSCOPY
WOLF-RAYET STARS