Confirmation of New Planetary Nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Parker, Quentin A.; Reid, Warren A.; Shaw, Richard A.
United States, Australia
Abstract
We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images of new planetary nebulae (PNe) that were discovered in the Reid-Parker Anglo-Australian Observatory/UK Schmidt Telescope Hα survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud. These serendipitous observations from various HST programs yield independent confirmations of six PNe; one other detected nebula may also be a PN, and one appears to be a region of diffuse emission. The high-resolution HST archival images enable us to determine the physical sizes, nebular morphology, and related features of these new PNe in detail for the first time. In a few cases, we were also able to identify the central star, which was impossible with the lower resolution, wide-field discovery data. The confirmation of faint, extended halos surrounding many PNe in the Reid-Parker catalog must await the acquisition of new deep, high-resolution, narrowband imagery.
Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.