Multiwavelength study of M33's giant HII regions NGC 588 and NGC 592

Abstract

We present a detailed multiwavelength photometric study of giant HII regions NGC 592 and NGC 588 in the nearby small spiral galaxy M33. We use data taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We detect several massive stars in both ionizing clusters. Six Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are known to exist within those regions and we are able to constrain their physical properties by comparing their photometry to the latest grid of model atmospheres for WR stars of the nitrogen sequence (WN subclass). We estimate the age and mass of both regions by fitting our photometry to models of integrated stellar populations.