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GTC Spectroscopic Surveys of Planetary Nebulae in the Milky Way and M31

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2025

Xuan Fang Open the ORCID record for Xuan Fang [Opens in a new window] ,
Haomiao Huang ,
Martín A. Guerrero Open the ORCID record for Martín A. Guerrero [Opens in a new window] ,
Letizia Stanghellini Open the ORCID record for Letizia Stanghellini [Opens in a new window] ,
Rubén García-Benito ,
Ting-Hui Lee  and
Yong Zhang Open the ORCID record for Yong Zhang [Opens in a new window]
Xuan Fang*
Affiliation:
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), Beijing 100101, China; Laboratory for Space Research, Faculty of Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Haomiao Huang
Affiliation:
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), Beijing 100101, China; School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Martín A. Guerrero
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, E-18008 Granada, Spain
Letizia Stanghellini
Affiliation:
NSF’s NOIRLab, 950 N. Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
Rubén García-Benito
Affiliation:
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, E-18008 Granada, Spain
Ting-Hui Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA
Yong Zhang
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Space Research, Faculty of Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
*
fangx@nao.cas.cn
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Abstract

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We report spectroscopic surveys of planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Milky Way and Andromeda (M31), using the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). The spectra are of high quality and cover the whole optical range, mostly from 3650 Å to beyond 1 μm, enabling detection of nebular emission lines critical for spectral analysis and photoionization modeling. We obtained GTC spectra of 24 compact (angular diameter <5 arcsec) PNe located in the Galactic disk, ∼3–20 kpc from the Galactic centre, and that can be used to constrain stellar evolution models and derive radial abundance gradients of the Milky Way. We have observed 30 PNe in the outer halo of M31 using the GTC. These halo PNe are uniformly metal-rich and probably all evolved from low-mass stars, consistent with the conjecture that they formed from the metal-rich gas in M31 disk but were displaced to their present locations due to galaxy interactions.

Keywords

(ISM:) planetary nebulae: generalstars: evolutionplanetary nebula

Information

Type
Contributed Paper
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 19 , Symposium S384: Planetary Nebulae: A Universal Toolbox in the Era of Precision Astrophysics , December 2023 , pp. 36 - 42
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Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Astronomical Union

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