Massive stars and their stellar winds are important for a number of feedback processes. The mass lost in the stellar wind can help determine the end-point of the star as a neutron star (NS) or a black hole (BH). However, the impact of mass loss on the post-main sequence evolutionary stage of massive stars is not well understood. Westerlund 1 is an ideal astrophysical laboratory in which to study massive stars and their winds in great detail over a large range of different evolutionary phases. We aim to study the radio emission from Westerlund 1, in order to measure radio fluxes from the population of massive stars, and determine the mass-loss rates and spectral indices where possible. Observations were carried out in 2015 and 2016 with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) at 5.5 and 9GHz using multiple configurations, with maximum baselines ranging from 750m to 6km. Thirty stars are detected in the radio from the fully concatenated dataset, ten of which are Wolf Rayet stars (WRs) (predominantly late type WN stars), five yellow hypergiants (YHGs), four red supergiants (RSGs), one luminous blue variable (LBV), the sgB[e] star W9, and several OB supergiants. New source detections in the radio are found for the WR stars, and five OB supergiants. These detections lead to evidence for three new OB supergiant binary candidates, which is inferred from derived spectral index limits. Spectral indices and index limits were determined for massive stars in Westerlund 1. For cluster members found to have partially optically thick emission, mass-loss rates were calculated. Under the approximation of a thermally emitting stellar wind and a steady mass-loss rate, clumping ratios were then estimated for eight WRs. Diffuse radio emission was detected throughout the cluster. Detections of knots of radio emission with no known counterparts indicate the highly clumped structure of this intra-cluster medium, likely shaped by a dense cluster wind.
We present deep UBVI_c_ photometric data of the young open cluster Westerlund 2. An abnormal reddening law of R_V,cl_=4.14+/-0.08 was found for the highly reddened early-type members (E(B-V)>=1.45), whereas a fairly normal reddening law of R_V,fg_=3.33+/-0.03 was confirmed for the foreground early-type stars (E(B-V)_fg_<1.05). The distance modulus was determined from zero-age main-sequence fitting to the reddening-corrected colour-magnitude diagram of the early-type members to be V_0_-M_V_=13.9+/-0.14 (random error) _-0.1_^+0.4^ (the upper limit of systematic error) mag (d=6.0+/-0.4_-0.3_^+1.2^kpc). To obtain te initial mass function, pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars were selected by identifying the optical counterparts of Chandra X-ray sources and mid-infrared emission stars from the Spitzer GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire) source catalogue. The initial mass function shows a shallow slope of {Gamma}=-1.1+/-0.1 down to log(m)=0.7. The total mass of Westerlund 2 is estimated to be at least 7400M_{sun}_. The age of Westerlund 2 from the main-sequence turn-on and PMS stars is estimated to be <~1.5Myr. We confirmed the existence of a clump of PMS stars located ~1-arcmin north of the core of Westerlund 2, but we could not find any clear evidence for an age difference between the core and the northern clump.
The 21-cm line emission from a 7x6deg^2^ region east of and adjoining the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) has been observed with the Australia Telescope Compact Array and the Parkes telescopes. This region represents the westernmost part of the Magellanic Bridge, a gas-rich tail extending ~14{deg} to the Large Magellanic Cloud. A rich and complex neutral hydrogen (HI) structure containing shells, bubbles and filaments is revealed. On the larger scale, the HI of the Bridge is organized into two velocity components. This bimodality, which appears to originate in the SMC, converges to a single velocity component within the observed region. A census of shell-like structures suggests a shell population with characteristics similar to that of the SMC.
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This AstroGrid community is for users from the Univeristy of Edinburgh, as well as users from continental Europe who have requested AstroGrid access to UKIDSS data. It is also for those users who will be using UKIDSS heavily and would like to have their online data storage close to the actual database server.
Stellar variability in the near-infrared (NIR) remains largely unexplored. The exploitation of public science archives with data-mining methods offers a perspective for a time-domain exploration of the NIR sky. We perform a comprehensive search for stellar variability using the optical-NIR multiband photometric data in the public Calibration Database of the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA), with the aim of contributing to the general census of variable stars and of extending the current scarce inventory of accurate NIR light curves for a number of variable star classes.