Related papers: Spectral variability of planetary nebulae and rela…
We have carried out optical spectroscopic measurements of emission lines for a sample of Galactic planetary nebulae with Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars and weak emission-line stars (wels). The plasma diagnostics and elemental abundance analysis have…
The presentation of new results from an [O III] 5007 A survey in a search for planetary nebulae (PNe) in the galactic bulge is continued. A total of 60 objects, including 19 new PNe, have been detected in the remaining 34 per cent of the…
A number of efforts are underway to detect close binary stars in planetary nebulae. The primary goal of these studies is to determine the binary fraction of central stars. The next stage is a detailed analysis of the binaries to determine…
I review recent observational progress on Anomalous X-ray Pulsars, with an emphasis on timing, variability, and spectra. Highlighted results include the recent timing and flux stabilization of the notoriously unstable AXP 1E 1048.1-5937,…
The excitation of the axial quasi-normal modes of a relativistic star by scattered particles is studied by evolving the time dependent perturbation equations. This work is the first step towards the understanding of more complicated…
The luminosity function of planetary nebulae populations in galaxies within 10-15 Mpc distance has a cut-off at bright magnitudes and a functional form that is observed to be invariant in different galaxy morphological types. Thus it is…
We present near-IR K-band intermediate-dispersion spatially-resolved spectroscopic observations of a limited sample of bipolar planetary nebulae (PNe). The spectra have been used to determine the excitation mechanism of the H2 molecule…
Planetary nebulae (PNe) were expected to be filled with hot pressurized gas driving their expansion. ROSAT hinted at the presence of diffuse X-ray emission from these hot bubbles and detected the first sources of hard X-ray emission from…
The link between the shaping of bipolar planetary nebulae and their central stars is still poorly understood. The kinematics and shaping of the multipolar nebula M 1-75 are hereby investigated, and the location and nature of its central…
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…
A project which aims to understand the abundance patterns of He, C, N, O, Ne, S, and Ar for a small sample of planetary nebulae is described. Abundance ratios of O/H, C/O, and N/O especially show a broad range relative to their solar…
We present near-IR narrow-band continuum-subtracted images in the H$_2$ $2.122\mu$m, and Br$\gamma$ $2.166\mu$m emission lines for a sample of 15 bipolar planetary nebulae. H$_2$ emission was definitely detected for most of the objects in…
The actual value of the oxygen abundance of the metal-poor planetary nebula PN G135.9+55.9 has frequently been debated in the literature. We wanted to clarify the situation by making an improved abundance determination based on a study that…
A summary is given of planetary nebulae abundances from ISO measurements. It is shown that these nebulae show abundance gradients (with galactocentric distance), which in the case of neon, argon, sulfur and oxygen (with four exceptions) are…
Binary central stars have long been invoked to explain the vexing shapes of planetary nebulae (PNe) despite there being scant direct evidence to support this hypothesis. Modern large-scale surveys and improved observing strategies have…
In this brief review, I discuss recent developments in the study of pulsar-powered nebulae ("plerions"). The large volume of data which has been acquired in recent years reveals a diverse range of observational properties, demonstrating how…
We present a systematic study of line widths in the [\ion{O}{3}]$\lambda$5007 and H$\alpha$ lines for a sample of 86 planetary nebulae in the Milky Way bulge based upon spectroscopy obtained at the \facility{Observatorio Astron\'omico…
We present a homogeneous set of spectroscopic measurements secured with 4-meter class telescopes for a sample of 90 planetary nebulae (PNe) located in the direction of the Galactic bulge. We derive their plasma parameters and chemical…
Data on the variability of the continuum optical emission are used for the first time to estimate the degree of spotting in stars similar to that of the sun. It is sown that the amount of spotting increases gradually from the sun to the…
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…