Imaging surveys of the bright 5007 angstrom line in nearby early-type galaxies and the bulges of spirals have catalogued many planetary nebulae. Planetary nebulae arise from the late stages of evolution of low mass stars and are thus representative of a large fraction of the stellar population by number. In about 80 percent of planetary nebulae the abundances of the well observed lighter elements are not affected by the nucleo synthesis which occurs on the Asymptotic Giant Branch, so the nebular abundances can be related to those of the progenitor star. Planetary nebular abundances compared with those of H II regions in spirals, as indicators of abundance gradients and enrichment history. Planetary nebulae provide point probes of the stellar abundance and, in contrast to integrated line of sight stellar spectra, can be used to measure the abundance spread.

Date Published: 29 June 2000
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 4005, Discoveries and Research Prospects from 8- to 10-Meter-Class Telescopes, (29 June 2000); doi: 10.1117/12.390136

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4005:
Discoveries and Research Prospects from 8- to 10-Meter-Class Telescopes
Jacqueline Bergeron, Editor(s)