Discovery of new planetary nebulae in the SMC

Danica Draskovic, Quentin A. Parker, Warren A. Reid & Milorad Stupar

Macquarie University, Australia

We present six new planetary nebulae (PNe) discovered in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) from deep UK Schmidt telescope narrow-band Halpha and broad-band short-red continuum images and confirmed spectroscopically. These preliminary discoveries provide a 6 per cent increase to the previously known SMC PN population of ~100. Once spectroscopic follow-up of all our newly identified SMC PN candidates is complete, we expect to increase the total number of known SMC PNe by up to 50 per cent. This will permit a significant improvement to determination of the SMC PN luminosity function and enable further insights into the chemical evolution and kinematics of the SMC PN population.

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