A catalogue of integrated H-alpha fluxes for 1,258 Galactic planetary nebulae

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive catalogue of integrated H-alpha fluxes for 1,258 Galactic planetary nebulae, derived from large sky surveys, serving as a valuable resource for astrophysical research and calibration.

Contribution

It presents the largest homogeneous compilation of H-alpha fluxes for Galactic PNe, including new measurements, deconvolution of [NII] contributions, and independent reddening estimates.

Findings

No significant zero-point error in flux scale

Provides fluxes for 75 objects previously misclassified as PNe

Includes reddening estimates for ~270 PNe

Abstract

We present a catalogue of new integrated H-alpha fluxes for 1258 Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), with the majority, totalling 1234, measured from the Southern H-Alpha Sky Survey Atlas (SHASSA) and/or the Virginia Tech Spectral-line Survey (VTSS). Aperture photometry on the continuum-subtracted digital images was performed to extract H-alpha + [NII] fluxes in the case of SHASSA, and H-alpha fluxes from VTSS. The [NII] contribution was then deconvolved from the SHASSA flux using spectrophotometric data taken from the literature or derived by us. Comparison with previous work shows that the flux scale presented here has no significant zero-point error. Our catalogue is the largest compilation of homogeneously derived PN fluxes in any waveband yet measured, and will be an important legacy and fresh benchmark for the community. Amongst its many applications, it can be used to determine statistical distances for these PNe, determine new absolute magnitudes for delineating the faint end of the PN luminosity function, provide baseline data for photoionization and hydrodynamical modelling, and allow better estimates of Zanstra temperatures for PN central stars with accurate optical photometry. We also provide total H-alpha fluxes for another 75 objects which were formerly classified as PNe, as well as independent reddening determinations for ~270 PNe, derived from a comparison of our H-alpha data with the best literature H-beta fluxes. In an appendix, we list corrected H-alpha fluxes for 49 PNe taken from the literature, including 24 PNe not detected on SHASSA or VTSS, re-calibrated to a common zero-point.