Discovery of two Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars in Circinus

I report the discovery of two new Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars in Circinus via detection of their C, N and He near-infrared emission lines, using ESO-NTT-SOFI archival data. The H- and K-band spectra of WR 67a and WR 67b indicate that these are Wolf-Rayet stars of WN 6h and WC 8 subtypes, respectively. WR 67a presents a weak-lined spectrum probably reminiscent of young hydrogen-rich main-sequence stars, such as WR 25 in Car OB1 and HD 97950 in NGC 3603. Indeed, this conclusion is reinforced by the close morphological match of the WR 67a H- and K-band spectra with that for WR 21a, a known extremely massive binary system. WR 67b is probably a non-dusty WC 8 Wolf-Rayet star that has an estimated heliocentric distance of 2.7 +/- 0.9 kpc, which for its Galactic coordinates puts the star probably in the near portion of the Scutum-Centaurus arm.