Related papers: The population of Magellanic Cloud planetary nebul…
We have extended our PNe survey to the outer ~64deg^2 of the LMC using maps from the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS) and the UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) H-alpha survey. Although the MCELS survey has poorer ~5 arcsecond…
Until recently our knowledge of the Galactic Bulge stellar populations was based on the study of a few low extinction windows. Large photometric and spectroscopic surveys are now underway to map large areas of the bulge. They probe several…
The main goal of our project is to investigate the spatial distribution of different stellar populations in the Magellanic Clouds. The results from modelling the Magellanic Clouds can be useful, among others, for simulations during the Gaia…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of extragalactic stellar populations. Indeed, in many systems, bright PNe are the only individual objects identifiable from the ground, and, even more often, they…
In addition to study extragalactic stellar populations in their integrated light, the detailed analysis of individual resolved objects has become feasible, mainly for luminous giant stars and for extragalactic planetary nebulae (XPNe) in…
The LMC is ideal for studying the co-evolution of planetary nebulae (PNe) and their central stars, in that the debilitating uncertainties of the Galactic PN distance scale and selection biases from attenuation by interstellar dust do not…
In view of their nature, planetary nebulae have very short lifetimes, and the chemical abundances derived so far have a natural bias favoring younger objects. In this work, we report physical parameters and abundances for a sample of old…
We present the images of a \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} (\textit{HST}/WFC3) snapshot program of angularly compact Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), acquired with the aim of studying their size, evolutionary status, and morphology. PNe…
We analyze the dependence of circumstellar extinction on core mass for the brightest planetary nebulae (PNe) in the Magellanic Clouds and M31. We show that in all three galaxies, a statistically significant correlation exists between the…
We present medium- and broad-band Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry of a sample of 35 central stars (CSs) of Planetary Nebulae (PNs) in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The observations were made with the WFPC2 and STIS instruments…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) and their central stars (CSs) are ideal tools to test evolutionary theory: photospheric properties of their exciting stars give stringent constraints for theoretical predictions of stellar evolution. The nebular…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) can be used to trace intermediate and old stellar populations in galaxies and the intracluster medium out to approximately 20 Mpc. PNe can be easily identified with narrow-band surveys, and their chemical abundances…
One of the challenges for stellar astrophysics is to reach the point at which we can undertake reliable spectral synthesis of unresolved populations in young, star-forming galaxies at high redshift. Here I summarise recent studies of…
As an ongoing study of Magellanic Cloud PNe we have obtained UV spectra of 9 PNe in the SMC to measure their carbon abundances. The spectra have been acquired with ACS HRC/PR200L and SBC/PR130L. The ACS prisms give a reasonable resolution…
The diffuse extended outer regions of galaxies are hard to study because they are faint, with typical surface brightness of 1% of the dark night sky. We can tackle this problem by using resolved star tracers which remain visible at large…
Planetary nebula are useful kinematic tracers of the stars in all galaxy types. I review recent observationally-driven developments in the study of galaxy mass profiles. These have yielded surprising results on spiral galaxy disk masses and…
We address the general problem of the luminosity-specific planetary nebula (PN) number, defined as alpha = N(PN)/L(gal), and its relationship with age and metallicity of the parent stellar population. Our analysis relies on population…
We discuss the young population of stars and clusters in the Magellanic Clouds. We present the discovery of pre-main sequence candidates in the nebula N~11 in the Large Magellanic Clouds using HST ACS photometry. The comparison of the…
Pulsating variable stars can be powerful tools to study the structure, formation and evolution of galaxies. I discuss the role that the Magellanic Clouds' pulsating variables play in our understanding of the whole Magellanic System, in…
Important problems to which we would like to find answers are: What are the distances to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)? What is the present distribution of stars, gas and dark matter in the Clouds,…