The discovery of a 12th Wolf-Rayet star in the small magellanic cloud

We report the discovery of a relatively faint (V = 15.5) early-type WN star in the SMC. The line strength and width of He II lambda4686 emission are similar to those of the other SMC WN stars, and the presence of N v lambdalambda4603, 4619 emission (coupled with the lack of N III) suggests that this star is of spectral type WN3-4.5, and thus is similar in type to the other SMC WR stars. Also like the other SMC WN stars, an early-type absorption spectrum is weakly present. The absolute magnitude is comparable to that of other (single) Galactic early-type WN stars. The star is located in the Hodge 53 OB association, which is also the home of two other SMC WN stars. This star, which we designate SMC-WR12, was actually detected at a high significance level in an earlier interference-filter survey, but the wrong star was observed as part of a spectroscopic follow-up, and this case of mistaken identity resulted in its Wolf-Rayet nature not being recognized until now.