J/PASP/120/380 Spatial orientation of planetary nebulae (Weidmann+, 2008)
The spatial orientation of planetary nebulae within the Milky way.
Weidmann W.A., Diaz R.J.
<Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac., 120, 380-392 (2008)>
=2008PASP..120..380W 2008PASP..120..380W
ADC_Keywords: Planetary nebulae
Abstract:
We analyze the spatial orientation of a homogeneous sample of
440 elongated Planetary Nebulae (PNe) in order to determine the
orientation of their apparent major axis with respect to the Milky
Way plane. We present some important geometrical and statistical
considerations that have been overlooked by previous works on the
subject. The global distribution of galactic position angles (GPA) of
PNe is quantitatively not very different from a random distribution of
orientations in the Galaxy. Nevertheless, we find that there is at
least one region on the sky, toward the Galactic center, where a weak
correlation may exist between the orientation of the major axis of
some PNe and the Galactic equator, with an excess of axes with
GPA∼100°. Therefore, we confirm that extrinsic phenomena (i.e.,
global Galactic magnetic fields, shell compression from motion
relative to the Interstellar Medium) do not determine the morphology
of PNe on most of the sky, with a possible exception toward the
Galactic center.
Description:
The sample was extracted from the Catalogue of Galactic Planetary
Nebulae updated version 2000 (Kohoutek 2001; hereafter CGPN2000, Cat.
IV/24) that includes 1510 true PNe and the MASH survey (Parker et
al., 2006, Cat. V/127) with 903 objects; 578 of them are classified
as true PN.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 47 459 PN Data
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See also:
V/127 : MASH Catalogues of Planetary Nebulae (Parker+ 2006-2008)
IV/24 : Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae (Kohoutek, 2001)
V/84 : Strasbourg-ESO Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae (Acker+, 1992)
J/AN/323/484 : Accurate coordinates of Planetary Nebulae (Kohoutek+, 2002)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 19 A19 --- Name PN name
21- 25 F5.1 deg GLON Galactic longitude
27- 32 F6.1 deg GLAT Galactic latitude
35- 37 I3 deg EPA ? Position angle of the projected major axis (1)
39- 41 I3 deg GPA ? Galactic position angle
43- 47 A5 --- Source References (2)
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Note (1): measured within the equatorial coordinates system,
from the North toward the East
Note (2): Source as follows:
CAM98 = Corradi et al., 1998MNRAS.297..617C 1998MNRAS.297..617C
DSS2 = Digitized Sky Survey version 2 (red broad band)
HST = HST archival imagery (filters F502N and F656N)
MASH = Parker et al., 2006, Cat. V/127 (Hα narrow band)
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 12-Jun-2008