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N. L. King, A. Nota (STScI), B. Han (Myongji University, Korea), M. Clampin (STScI)
Where is the luminous H\alpha emission-line star, S119 along our line of sight? The radial velocities of LMC stars are generally between +250 and +300 km/s, while those of the foreground Milky Way Galaxy stars generally have radial velocities less than 70 km/s. S119 has a heliocentric radial velocity of +150 km/s.
Optical spectra of stars like S119 in the LMC show NaD 5890 and 5891 Å~ insterstellar absorption features with radial velocities of +25 km/s (Galactic) and +250 to +300 km/s (LMC). The optical spectra of S119, however, show only the Galactic absorption components.
Paradoxically, the FUV (FUSE) spectra in a 30\arcsec~\times 30\arcsec~ aperture on S119 show OI 1039 Å~ and FeII 1145 Å~ interstellar absorption features with radial velocity components at +20 km/s, +60 km/s, +130 km/s, +220 km/s, and +290 km/s (Danforth & Chu 2001). They suggest that the Galactic and LMC interstellar components are seen in front of S119, and that S119 is located on the back side of the LMC.
We observed five stars near S119 with the NTT 3.5-m EMMI spectrograph to obtain spectral types and radial velocities. We estimate the distances to the stars with the spectral types and UBVR photometry (Massey 2002) and use color magnitude diagrams of the neighboring stars to further examine the location of S119.