Related papers: All Things Homunculus
New, very long (25'), cuts of spatially resolved profiles of the Halpha and [N II] optical emission lines have been obtained over the face of the Helix planetary nebula, NGC 7293. These directions were chosen to supplement previous similar,…
The spectra of Herbig Haro objects are usually characteristic of ionization and excitation in shock-heated gas, whether an internal shock in an unsteady outflow or a bow shock interface with the interstellar medium. We examine the…
Extreme helium stars are very rare low-mass supergiants in a late stage of evolution. They are probably contracting to become white dwarfs following a violent phase of evolution which caused them to become hydrogen-deficient giants,…
This methodological paper is part of a short series dedicated to the long-standing astronomical problem of de-projecting the bi-dimensional, apparent morphology of a three-dimensional distribution of gas. We focus on the quantification and…
The bulge is a region of the Galaxy of tremendous interest for understanding galaxy formation. However measuring photometry and kinematics in it raises several inherent issues, such as severe crowding and high extinction in the visible.…
A large, faint nebula was unexpectedly discovered near M31 using narrowband [O III] images. Its apparent size and the lack of a clear counterpart at other wavelengths make it unique and challenging to explain. We aim to determine whether…
The massive evolved star Eta Carinae is the most luminous star in the Milky Way and has the highest steady wind mass-loss rate of any known star. Radiative transfer models of the spectrum by Hillier et al. predict that H-alpha is mostly…
In this paper we have analyzed IUE high resolution spectra of the central star (BD+602522) of the Bubble nebula. We discuss velocities of the different regions along the line of sight to the bubble. We find that the Bubble Nebula is younger…
HST images, MUSE maps of emission-lines, and an atlas of high velocity resolution emission-line spectra have been used to establish for the firrst time correlations of the electron temperature, electron density, radial velocity, turbulence,…
The Planetary Nebula Spectrograph is a dedicated instrument for measuring radial velocity of individual Planetary Nebulae (PNe) in galaxies. This new instrument is providing crucial data with which to probe the structure of dark halos in…
We perform three-dimensional gas-dynamical simulations and show that the asymmetric morphology of the blue and red-shifted components of the outflow at hundreds of astronomical units (AU) from the massive binary system eta Carinae can be…
The role of planetary nebulae as probes for the galactic chemical evolution is reviewed. Their abundances throughout the Galaxy are discussed for key elements, in particular oxygen and other alpha elements. The abundance distribution…
Galaxies are faint enough when one observes just their light distributions, but in studying their full dynamical structure the stars are spread over the six dimensions of phase space rather than just the three spatial dimensions, making…
I review the capabilities of H$\alpha$ observations to constrain some aspects of the current models of the interstellar medium. In particular, it is shown that turbulence is a necessary ingredient of any viable model, since most of the…
We have studied the interstellar extinction in a field of ~3' x 3' at the core of the 30 Doradus nebula, including the central R136 cluster, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Observations at optical and near-infrared wavelengths, obtained with…
We present results from a program of optical spectroscopy for 23 nearby galaxy emission-line nuclei. This investigation takes advantage of the spatial resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope to study the structure and energetics of the…
M1-92 can be considered an archetype of bipolar pre-planetary nebulae. It shows a clear axial symmetry, along with the kinematics and momentum excess characteristic of this class of envelopes around post-AGB stars. By taking advantage of…
The X-ray emission of $\eta$ Carinae shows multiple features at various spatial and temporal scales. The central constant emission (CCE) component is centred on the binary and arises from spatial scales much smaller than the bipolar…
We have obtained multi-wavelength observations of compact Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) to probe post-Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) evolution from the onset of nebular ejection. We analyze new observations from HST to derive the masses…
We introduce VLT-MUSE observations of the central 2$'\times2'$ (30$\times$30 pc) of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The observations provide an unprecedented spectroscopic census of the massive stars and ionised gas in…