VLT/NACO near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of N159A in the LMC HII complex N159

Gérard Testor (1) , Jean-Louis Lemaire (2) , D. Field (3) , Stephan Diana (2)

1 LUTH (UMR_8102) - Laboratoire Univers et Théories
2 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
3 DASC - Danish AsteroSeismology Centre

We present near-infrared imaging and spectrocopic observations of the HII region N159A (~10 pc) in the giant star-forming region N159 (50 pc) in the LMC. N159A was observed in the J and Ks bands at high spatial resolution ~0.2 arcsec using the ESO Very Large Telescope UT4 (VLT), equipped with the NAOS adaptative optics system. Our data reveal the morphology of this region in unprecedented detail. The protostar P2, one of the first YSOs of Class I identified in the LMC is now resolved in two YSO candidates. The ultracompact HII region LI-LMC 1501W is found to be a tight cluster embedded in a compact HII region ionised by a late O source. A new multiple system composed of a tight star cluster and an YSO candidate, all embedded in a compact nebular region (0.4 pc) is also detected at the north-east edge of N159A. The stellar population of the whole N159A region appears composed of two main stellar populations, one with an age

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Gérard Testor, Jean-Louis Lemaire, D. Field, Stephan Diana. VLT/NACO near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy of N159A in the LMC HII complex N159. Astronomy and Astrophysics - A&A, 2006, 453, pp.517-524. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361:20054697⟩. ⟨hal-03784902⟩