A new population of planetary nebulae candidates towards the Galactic bulge

Abstract

We discuss discovery of a new population of up to 300 planetary nebulae (PNe) candidates captured serendipitously in deep [OIII] imaging of the Galactic Bulge taken with the Mosaic II wide-field CCD imager on the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory's 4 m Blanco telescope. This imaging was taken to determine accurate [OIII] fluxes for known Bulge PNe, but, through careful examination, is also yielding significant numbers of new PNe candidates. These new candidates range from compact but still relatively faint sources, through to very extended, low surface brightness PNe. The new population is summarised, discovery techniques reviewed and preliminary confirmatory spectroscopy presented. Implications for the PNe bulge population and luminosity function are briefly discussed.