AAS 200th meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 2002
Session 8. Binary Stars
Display, Monday, June 3, 2002, 9:20am-6:30pm, SW Exhibit Hall

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[8.10] New Observations of the Ultraluminous X-ray source 1E0953.8+6918 in Holmberg IX

K.A. Eriksen (Steward Observatory/University of Arizona), P.O. Slane (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), J.R. Rigby (Steward Observatory/University of Arizona), A.H. Szentgyorgyi (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

We present new observations of 1E0953.8+6918, an apparent ultraluminous X-ray binary in the M81 group galaxy Holmberg IX, and its associated emission-line shell. Deep MMT spectra allow us to constrain the relative contributions of shock heating and photoionization in exciting the nebula, while our Chandra and VATT observations unambigously reveal the optical counterpart of the compact X-ray source. If the compact object emits isotropically near the Eddington limit, it would be a ~100 Msol black hole; we will also address alternative models.

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.