A catalogue of integrated hα fluxes for 1258 galactic planetary nebulae

Abstract

We present a catalogue of new integrated Hα fluxes for 1258 Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), with themajority, totalling 1234, measured from the Southern Hα Sky Survey Atlas (SHASSA) and/or theVirginia Tech Spectral-line Survey (VTSS).Aperture photometry on the continuumsubtracted digital images was performed to extract Hα+[N II] fluxes in the case of SHASSA, and Hα 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 Hα 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 Hα data with the best literature Hα fluxes. In an appendix, we list corrected Hα fluxes for 49 PNe taken from the literature, including 24 PNe not detected on SHASSA or VTSS, re-calibrated to a common zero-point. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.