6 Other emission-line objects

Along with WR stars, we may detect other emission line objects in our survey. As mentioned previously, LBVs are related to WRs, and also have strong emission lines in the infrared. Be and B[e] stars have Br$\gamma$lines, but much weaker than for WRs or LBVs. Therefore only the strongest emitters may be detected.

Another possibility is WR central stars of planetary nebulae. The stars themselves have very weak lines in this region, but their surrounding nebulae have lines of He I at 2.06 $\mu$m and B$\gamma$ at 2.166 $\mu$m.

We can also detect very young O and B stars still enshrouded in their natal gas and dust. These objects form compact, or ultra-compact H II regions, and later, when they are more revealed, can exhibit emission from circumstellar disks. They will be visible in nebular emission lines of Br $\gamma$ and He I $2.06~ \mu$m (Blum & Damineli 1999b; Hanson et al. 2002). Along with the WR stars which we have already detected (see above), we have identified several compact Br$\gamma$sources. These will be discussed in our following paper detailing the spectroscopic observations of our candidate objects.