Publications of the MPIfR
Optical & Infrared
Interferometry Group
K. Davidson, D. Ebbets, G. Weigelt,
R.M. Humphreys, A.R. Hajian, N.R. Walborn, and M. Rosa
HST/FOC Spectroscopy of Eta Carinae: The Star
Itself and Ejecta within 0.3 arcsec
The Astronomical Journal, v.109, p.1784 (1995)
Abstract
Ground-based spectroscopy of eta Car includes at least four components
ABCD within a core region less than 0.4 across, and usually other
material as well. Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HSTs) Faint Object
Spectrograph (FOS), we have obtained separate data on component A and
on
B+C+D. Object A is found to be the central star; this is the fist time
that the spectrum of the star eta Car has been observed without a
severe
contamination by surrounding ejecta.The spectrum is that of a hot dense
stellar wind with a mass-loss rate of the order of 10-3
solar
mass/yr. A more detailed nonspherical analysis of the data has not yet
been done. Objects BCD appear to be ejecta rather than companion stars,
since their combined spectrum has many forbidden lines with no sign of
any stellar spectrum different from that of A. Exitation mechanisms in
BCD are of great interest and deserve more theoretical study.
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