Abstract
The author reviews the last few decades of UV observations of the Magellanic Clouds, and how these data have been instrumental in advancing our knowledge of massive stars. In particular, he presents observations made by the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT), which obtained photometric data over a wide field of view. These data are excellent at highlighting hot stars while suppressing the cooler, lower mass stars that often cause confusion in studies of crowded fields. Using the UIT data, the author derives initial mass functions and other parameters for field stars as well as for stars in a collection of clusters. He discusses other uses of these UV data and their utility for identifying populations of massive stars in the Clouds for future studies.
