Locations of some massive stars in NGC 3372


(Credit: Walborn / CTIO / NOAO / NSF)
This is a reduced-quality version of an [S II] image obtained by Nolan Walborn at Cerro Tololo in 1975,
showing the northern part of the Carinae nebula. More than 30 years ago he classified half a dozen stars
in this region as O3 -- then a new type, representing the most massive stars near the main sequence.
They're members of clusters Trumpler 14 and 16, and are marked here with slim arrows while Eta Car
is marked by a thicker arrow. A number of other massive objects also exist in the same region.

5 arcmin in this image corresponds to a projected length of about 3.3 pc or 11 lightyears.

References --
· Original O3 stars: Walborn (1971) Astrophys. J. Letters 167, L31; and (1973) Astrophys. J. 179, 517.
· This image: Walborn (1975) Astrophys. J. 202, L129.
· Additional papers on Eta's neighborhood are cited in Davidson & Humphreys (1997) Ann. Revs. of
Astron. & Astrophys. 35, 1.


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