| Eta Carinae is the most massive, most luminous star in our region of the Galaxy. It is an evolved massive star and therefore provides many clues to the fate of the most massive stars. In the 1840s its unstable nature culminated in the Great Eruption when it briefly became the second brightest star in the sky and ejected more than ten solar masses, which today enshroud the surviving star as a bipolar nebula.;Every 5.54 years Eta Car's photometry and spectra show dramatic changes which last for several months. Combining data from HST/STIS, Gemini-S/GMOS, and VLT/UVES from 1998 to 2010, I analyzed two spectroscopic cycles. Observations with a variety of different slit position angles made it possible to map the emission across the nebula and the complex outer ejecta of Eta Car permit to observe the star at different stellar latitudes via reflected light.;The spectroscopic cycles are thought to be regulated by a hot companion star and therefore give us information to the nature and orbit of the stars hidden behind Eta Car's opaque wind. The observations, covering more than 10 years, made it also possible to observe the ongoing long-term recovery from the Great Eruption.;Topics covered in this thesis include: 1) spatial and temporal behavior of the high-excitation emission lines, 2) parameters of the secondary star, 3) He II 4687 emission during the 2009 "Event," 4) changing wind structure during the 2009 "Event," 5) origin of the He I lines, and 6) major changes in the broad-line wind spectrum indicating a decrease in Eta Car's wind density. |
