In addition to the bright sources LMC X-1–X-4 and A0538–66 fifteen EINSTEIN X-ray sources in the field of the LMC appear to be non-extended and have been accurately positioned with the HRI to make optical follow-up studies feasible. At least twelve of these are not associated with the LMC, including one Seyfert galaxy at redshift 0.076 and eleven late-type galactic foreground stars, some showing photometric variability typical for RS CVn and BY Dra stars.

The sources 1E 0524.5–7013 and 0543.8–6823 are identified with variable faint blue stellar objects, the latter has been observed to exhibit variable He II and Balmer emission lines being reminiscent of the low mass X-ray binary LMC X-2. The optical counterpart of LMC X-1 is a highly reddened (V=14.5, E(B-V)=0.61) 0 7–9 type giant with variable He II and N III emission. The IPC source 1E 0501.6–7037 is probably associated with the LMC OB emission line star SK-70 36 which shows ellipsoidal light variations with a period of 6.94 days.

Further possible identifications of IPC sources with stellar objects and globular clusters in the LMC are discussed. The results indicate that only a small fraction of the non-extended X-ray sources are associated with the LMC and that a gap in the X-ray binary luminosity function exists between 1036 and 1038 erg/s.

A full account of this work will be published elsewhere.