Bibcode
Dufour, R. J.; Henry, R. B. C.; Kwitter, K. B.; Buckalew, B. A.; Moore, B. D.; Bohigas, J.; Esteban, C.
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society Meeting 204, #74.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.803
Advertised on:
5
2004
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We report the first results of a Cycle 12 Hubble Space Telescope SNAP
program imaging the C III] 1909Å lines in planetary nebulae (PNe)
and extragalactic H II regions using WFPC2 with the F185W filter. To
date(2004 March), four PNe (NGC 6210, NGC 6720, NGC 6826 & NGC 7662)
and three H II regions (LMC N160A, SMC N81 & NGC 2363) have been
observed.
Using continuum imagery of the nebulae made with HST WFPC2 and the
knowledge of the UV spectra of regions in the nebulae from archival HST
FOS/STIS or IUE data, the UV continuum contribution to the F185W images
is calculated and subtracted to give images of the nebulae in the
emission of C III] 1909Å. These are compared to similarly
processed HST WFPC2 images of the nebulae in other emission lines, such
as [O III] 5007Å and Hα /Hβ , to study the ionization
structure of C+2 compared to O+2 and
H+, for example. The objectives of the research include: (a)
studying the effects that nebular variations in density, temperature and
dust content have on the observed F(1909Å)/F(5007Å) line
ratio across the nebulae, (b) studying the co-spatiality of the
C+2 and O+2 ionization structure, and (c)
evaluation of the accuracy of using observations of the integrated
F(1909Å)/F(5007Å) line ratio in nebulae for determining the
C+2/O+2 ratio and the total C/O abundance ratio in
PNe and H II regions.
This research is supported in part by AURA/STScI grants HST-GO-09740 to
Rice U., U. Oklahoma, and Williams Col..