Understanding two new extreme X-ray sources

Our optical identification campaign of hard Xray sources in the XMMNewtonGalactic Plane Survey (XGPS) has revealed two exceptional objects. First, sourceXGPS3 is identified with a heavily absorbed very bright infrared source whichcould be a star as luminous as eta Carina. Second, XGPS25 has all the featuresexpected from a lowmass Xray binary whose Xray emission is strongly shieldedby the accretion disc and if confirmed, would be the first very high inclinationaccretion disc corona known to date. The present proposal aims at obtaining highquality Xray spectra and time series which will help us to clarify the exactnature of these two objects. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]