Probing the Local Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function with Gaia

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2311.17820
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: N. Chornay; N. A. Walton; David Jones; H. M. J. Boffin
• Keywords: Extinction (optical mineralogy); Local Group

The Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function (PNLF) remains an important extragalactic distance indicator despite a still limited understanding of its most feature - the bright cut-off. External galaxies benefit from consistent and extinction, which makes determining PNLF easier but detailed study individual objects much more difficult. Now, advent parallaxes Gaia mission has dramatically improved estimates to planetary nebulae (PNe) in Milky Way. We have acquired ground-based narrowband imagery measured [OIII] fluxes for volume-limited sample hundreds PNe whose best statistical methods place them within 3 kpc Sun. present first results our study, comparing local other with different formation histories, discussing how brightness relates evolutionary state their central stars properties nebula.