| Name: | Arnab Chowhan |
| Affiliation: | Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences |
| Conference ID : | ASI2022_222 |
| Title : | An HST view of the Planetary Nebulae population in the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) |
| Authors : | Arnab Chowhan (Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India), Souradeep Bhattacharya (Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India) |
| Abstract Type: | Poster |
| Abstract Category : | Extragalactic Astronomy |
| Abstract : | Knowledge of the Planetary Nebulae (PNe) population of a galaxy sheds light on its kinematics, light, and stellar population. Our goal is to identify PNe present in the inner disk of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83). This can be used to find: a) the luminosity-specific PN number (alpha-parameter) of M83 that gives the number of PNe expected per unit bolometric light, and b) PN luminosity function (PNLF) of M83 that can estimate the distance of the galaxy from Earth. Using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC 3) data from the Hubble Space Telescope, we present an optical imaging survey of the galaxy. We have used one broadband (F547M) and two narrowband (O III & H alpha) filter observations of seven fields covering a large fraction of the inner disk. Extragalactic PNe are point sources with a bright [O III] emission line and a very faint continuum. Automated detection techniques were used to select such point sources down to a limiting magnitude, specific for each field. The contaminations due to H II regions were removed using the H-alpha image. In the final step to prepare the PNe catalog, known supernova remnant contaminants were removed. We have detected 310 PNe in the M83 inner disc. The alpha-parameter and PNLF for M83 will also be presented. |