Astrometric calibration was refined using 2MASS. Bright stars are saturated in the emission line images and have a non-linear CCD response, meaning they cannot be completely subtracted. This leads to circular bright residuals (and in some cases vertical bleeding) in the emission line images. We excluded these regions from further analysis by masking them.

We used the Br$\gamma$ 2.165$\mu$m narrowband flux calibrated image from Yeh et al. (2015). The image was obtained using the NOAO Extremely Wide Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM) mounted on the 4m Victor Blanco telescope located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile. The final Gaussian convolved image resolution for the Br$\gamma$ narrowband image is 1$\arcsec$, and is comparable to the VLT H$_2$2.12$\mu$m narrowband image.

Archival photometry
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mIR photometry of point sources in the stapler nebula were estimated by Gruendl & Chu (2009) from images at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0$\mu$m taken using the [*Spitzer*]{} space telescope IRAC (Infrared Array Camera) as part of the [*Spitzer*]{} legacy program SAGE (Spitzer Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud: Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy’s Evolution; Meixner et al. 2006). The full width half maximum (FWHM) of the images is 1.6$\arcsec$, 1.7$\arcsec$, 1.7$\arcsec$ and 2$\arcsec$ respectively. Alternative photometry of 