HST photometry of stars in HD 97950

We use photometry in the F220W, F250W, F330W, F435W filters from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys and photometry in the F555W, F675W, and F814W filters from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 aboard the Hubble Space Telescope to derive individual stellar reddenings and extinctions for stars in the HD97950 cluster in the giant HII region NGC 3603. The mean line of sight reddening for about a hundred main-sequence member stars inside the cluster is E(F435W-F555W)=1.33+/-0.12mag.

After correcting for foreground reddening, the total to selective extinction ratio is R_F555W_=3.75+/-0.87 in the cluster. Within the standard deviation associated with E({lambda}-F555W)/E(F435W-F555W) in each filter, the cluster extinction curve at ultraviolet wavelengths tends to be grayer than the average Galactic extinction laws from Cardelli et al. and Fitzpatrick. It is closer to the extinction law derived by Calzetti et al. for starburst galaxies, where the 0.2175{mu}m bump is absent.