New distances to planetary nebulae

[glenc]

David J Frew, Q A Parker and I S Bojicic from the Hong Kong university recently published an article called
The Hα surface brightness–radius relation: a robust statistical distance indicator for planetary nebulae

Measuring the distances to Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) has been an intractable problem for many decades. We have now established a robust optical statistical distance indicator, the Hα surface brightness–radius or SHα–r relation, which addresses this problem.


http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/455/2/1459.abstract


Table A4 in supporting information gives distances.

[Eratosthenes]

"....offer even better precision in the determination of distances, as good as 18 per cent in the case of optically thin, high-excitation PNe."

From the abstract... I wonder what the typical and worse case accuracy/uncertainty of this new technique?

(this 3 parameter technique is very impressive. I reckon it can be performed with amateur astrometric and optical set set ups - ie if you are keen on working out how far planetary nebulae are)

[glenc]

More info at https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2741-planetary-nebulae

[glenc]

Talking of distances, here are some for open clusters.

https://www.univie.ac.at/webda/vdb.html

Diameters of Open Star Clusters

van den Bergh S., 2006, Astron. J. 131, 1559 (2006AJ....131.1559V (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?2006AJ....131.1559V))
The link under the cluster name displays the WEBDA cluster page

Column contents:


Name : cluster designation
diameter : Cluster diameter in [pc]
dist : Distance in [pc] (1 pc = 3.26 light years)
Z : Distance from the galactic plane in [pc]
EBV : Colour exces E(B-V)
logt : logarithm of the age

[glenc]

Here are distances to globular clusters
http://physwww.physics.mcmaster.ca/~harris/mwgc.dat

CATALOG OF PARAMETERS FOR MILKY WAY GLOBULAR CLUSTERS: THE DATABASE
Compiled by William E. Harris, McMaster University
This revision: December 2010
(7) Distance from Sun (kiloparsecs)

[glenc]

Distances to galaxies

Cosmicflows-2 catalog (Tully+, 2013)
http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-3?-source=J/AJ/146/86/table1 (http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-3?-source=J/AJ/146/86/table1)