• Nombre : SEARCH FOR NEW GALACTIC LBV CANDIDATES
• Número/Código : G/2011B/06
• Nombre Concurso : CONCURSO PROPUESTAS DE OBSERVACIÓN ASTRONÓMICA PARA TIEMPO CHILENO EN EL OBSERVATORIO GEMINI SUR 2011B
• Año Concurso : 2011
• Tiempo Asignado : 12 horas

Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) stars represent an extremely rare class of very luminous and massive stars. Only about a dozen confirmed Galactic LBV stars are known to date, which precludes us from determining a solid evolutionary connection between LBV and other evolved massive stars. We identified a sample of possible LBV candidates from the Spitzer 24-micron archival data via detection of their circumstellar nebulae. Spectroscopic followup of central stars associated with some of these nebulae showed that they are either candidate LBVs or related evolved stars. We propose spectroscopic observations of the remaining stars of our southern sample to determine their nature and discover additional LBV candidates.