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Concluding Remarks

Astrophysical analysis of these new far-UV data lies in the (near) future, but the morphology already presages interesting developments, and indeed provides substantial guidance toward the interpretations, as it should. HDE 269810 = Sk211 is the current candidate for the most massive star known; values near 190 are derived independently from the atmospheric spectrum, luminosity, and wind terminal velocity (Puls et al. 1995). The far-UV spectrum, especially the O VI profile, should provide additional constraints on its extreme fundamental parameters. Model spectra of Sk137 and Puppis, O4 I(n)f, down to 900 Å are shown by [Kudritski 1992] and [Pauldrach et al. 1994]; in agreement with the observations, the O3 spectrum below 1200 Å has wind profiles only in O VI and S VI, while the O4 develops such profiles in lower ionization features as well. In relation to the CNO discrepancy between HDE 269698 = Sk166 and Sk167, enhanced mixing of processed material in rapid rotators has been predicted ([Maeder 1987]; [Langer 1992]). However, in this case the observations show just the opposite, i.e., N enhanced and C, O deficient in the slower rotator. Evidently, that mechanism does not apply to this situation, unless it is due to the axis inclinations; an explanation will likely contribute to improving our understanding of massive stellar evolution.

Acknowledgments:

NRW acknowledges support for Astro-2/HUT program G15 through NASA--Marshall Space Flight Center grant No. NAG8--1076. The excellent support of the Guest Investigator program by the HUT Team, whose commitment to achieving the best possible results from all the observations was consistently evident, is also acknowledged.



walborn@stsci.edu