Kevin Silva (IfA-Hilo)

Finding and Characterizing Central Sources of Circumstellar Envelopes
Detected in the mid-IR 

Circumstellar envelopes throughout the
Galactic plane have been discovered from visual inspection of the
Sptizer/MIPSGAL 24um mosaic images. These MIPSGAL bubbles (MBs) span
a large range of morphologies, sizes, and fluxes. The exact number of
MB with a clearly identified central source is difficult to assess
because of the confusion between multiple stars and the morphology of
the MB. This presentation will focus on determining the most probable
central source of 55 of these MBs using VLT/SINFONI observations in
the near-IR. It will walk through the process of the basic data
reduction and determination of the spectral types of the stars in each
MB. It will cover the characteristics of each group of spectral
types and then move on to the discussion of the possibility of which
star is most likely the source of the MB. These results come from a
project starting as an undergraduate to a full-time research assistant
over the summer.