Inventory of Candidates

In this section we discuss the initial results of our search for $\eta$Car analogs. A total of 46 sources passed our basic mid-IR selection criteria ( $L_{mIR}>10^{5}\,\,$L$_\odot$, $a>0$, $f>0.3$). First we discuss the eleven candidates that can be rejected as known non-stellar sources. Their properties are reported in Table4. Then we list the remaining 35 candidates, including ObjectX, in Table5. Table6 presents the near-IR photometry for the 9 sources with counterparts in the 2MASS point-source catalog (Cutri et al.2003).