Hubble Space Telescope Snapshots of Planetary Nebulae
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE SNAPSHOTS OF PLANETARY NEBULAE
We have a Hubble Space Telescope program
to find close, resolved
main-sequence companions to planetary nebula central stars. By identifying
these stars, and measuring their colors, we can derive an accurate distance
to the nebula through main-sequence fitting. Since most published
distances to Galactic planetary nebulae have large systematic errors, these
observations will improve our knowledge of the the distance scale to these
objects immensely.
THE PAPER WHICH ANALYSIS THE PLANETARY NEBULA DISTANCES IS
HERE
As a by product our exposures provide spectacular high-resolution
images of PNe, some of which we show here. The images are all displayed
in ``pseudo-color,'' and have been made by combining V and I band data.
The colors are not true colors as the
eye would see, but color differences in the reproductions do correspond
to real differences in the nebular color. In particular, features due to
dust absorption appear redder than their surroundings due to the color
dependence of dust extinction.
