2001A&A...372..667T

This paper presents new imagery and spectrophotometric results for the N26 HII region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. The observations using monochromatic images and low-resolution spectra (3700-10000Å) reveal a compact and complex nebula composed of two cores A and B where A in the region of Hβ is brighter than B by a factor ∼5 and distance of 2''. The core A of FWHM ∼2.1" or 0.6pc presents a high excitation [O III] λλ5007+4959/Hβ up to ∼8 and a high reddening E(B-V)≤0.6, while the core B is less excited but has a higher reddening ≥0.8. Each core contains one exciting source; the brighter one should be responsible for the high excitation of A. The apparent spectral type of the two cores ranges from O7 to O9 V and the gas electron density and temperature were derived from the absorption and emission-line intensities. The total mass of the ionized gas is evaluated at 13M_☉. The chemical abundances of He, O, N, Ne, S, and Ar were computed. These abundances seem consistent with average abundances for SMC HII regions, except N that appears slightly overabundant. N26A-B is comparable to the objects previously observed in the LMC and SMC that we have called ``blobs''.