Massive stars in SDSS/APOGEE-2. II. W3-W4-W5

These massive star-forming regions span over 200pc across the Perseus arm and have a notorious population of massive stars, from which a large fraction are members of various embedded and young open clusters. From 288 APOGEE spectra showing H-band spectral features typical of O- and B-type sources, 46 probably correspond to previously unknown O-type stars.

Therefore, we confirm that Br11-Br13 together with HeII {lambda}16923 (7-12) and HeII {lambda}15723 (7-13) lines contained in the APOGEE spectral bands are useful in providing spectral classification down to one spectral sub-class for massive stars in regions as distant as d~2kpc. The large number of newly found O-type stars as well as the numerous intermediate-mass population confirm that W345 is a very efficient massive star factory, with an integral stellar population probably amounting several thousand solar masses.