Open AccessThe distances of highly evolved planetary nebulae
Author(s) -
Phillips J. P.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08676.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , planetary nebula , stars , radius , brightness , extinction (optical mineralogy) , astronomy , absolute magnitude , optics , computer security , computer science
The central stars of highly evolved planetary nebulae (PNe) are expected to have closely similar absolute visual magnitudes M V . This enables us to determine approximate distances to these sources where one knows their central star visual magnitudes, and levels of extinction. We find that such an analysis implies values of D which are similar to those determined by Phillips; Cahn, Kaler & Stanghellin; Acker, and Daub. However, our distances are very much smaller than those of Zhang; Bensby & Lundstrom, and van de Steene & Zijlstra. The reasons for these differences are discussed, and can be traced to errors in the assumed relation between brightness temperature and radius. Finally, we determine that the binary companions of such stars can be no brighter than M V ∼ 6 mag , implying a spectral type of K0 or later in the case of main‐sequence stars.