Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT) Observations of the SMC

Abstract

A mosaic of four UIT far-UV (FUV; 1620A) images, which covers most of the SMC bar, is presented, with derived stellar and HII region photometry. The UV morphology of the SMC's Bar shows that recent star formation there has left striking features including: a) four concentrations of UV-bright stars spread from northeast to southwest at nearly equal (~30 arcmin=0.5 kpc) spacings; b) one concentration comprising a well-defined 8-arcmin diameter ring surrounded by a larger H-alpha ring, suggestive of sequential star formation. FUV PSF photometry is obtained for 11,306 stars, and FUV photometry is obtained for 42 H-alpha-selected HII regions, both for the stars and for the total emission contained in the apertures defined by Kennicutt & Hodge. The flux- weighted average ratio of total to stellar FUV flux is 2.15; the stellar FUV luminosity function indicates that most of the excess total flux is due to scattered FUV radiation, rather than faint stars. Both stellar and total emission are well correlated with H-alpha fluxes, and yield FUV/H-alpha ratios that are consistent with models of single-burst clusters with SMC metallicity, ages from 1-5 Myr, and moderate (E(B-V)=0.0-0.1 mag) internal SMC extinction.