2016/09/28 by Letizia Stanghellini, B. Bucciarelli, Stanghellini, Letizia +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Developments in Astronomy #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1609.08840
openalex publication_date 2016/09/28 · openalex created_date 2022/10/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We used the "primary dataset" of Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) to search for\nparallax measurements of central stars (CSs) of Galactic planetary nebulae\n(PNe), to determine PN distances. We found that a trigonometric parallax is\navailable for 16 CSs, seven of which with relative uncertainty below 80%. The\nlimited comparison of these trigonometric distances to other reliable\nindividual determinations discloses good correlation between the two sets, with\nthe Gaia parallax distances being lower by a factor of ~0.1 dex in the\nlogarithmic distances. We tested with the Gaia parallaxes the most popular\nGalactic PN distance scales, namely, the physical radius vs. surface\nbrightness, and the ionized mass vs. inverse optical thickness scales. While\nthe number of available calibrators may still be too low, and their relative\nuncertainties too high, to derive a working distance scale, we were able to\nassess the current sample and to reveal the very promising potential of the\nfuture Gaia releases for a recalibration of the distance scale of Galactic PNe.\n