In Search of Possible Associations between Planetary Nebulae and Open Clusters

Abstract

We consider the possibility of cluster membership for 13 planetary nebulae that are located in close proximity to open clusters lying in their lines of sight. The short lifetimes and low sample size of intermediate-mass planetary nebulae with respect to nearby open clusters conspire to reduce the probability of observing a true association. Not surprisingly, line of sight coincidences almost certainly exist for 7 of the 13 cases considered. Additional studies are advocated, however, for 6 planetary nebula/open cluster coincidences in which a physical association is not excluded by the available evidence, namely M 1-80/Berkeley 57, NGC 2438/NGC 2437, NGC 2452/NGC 2453, VBRC 2 & NGC 2899/IC 2488, and HeFa 1/NGC 6067. A number of additional potential associations between planetary nebulae and open clusters is tabulated for reference purposes. It is noteworthy that the strongest cases involve planetary nebulae lying in cluster coronae, a feature also found for short-period cluster Cepheids, which are themselves potential progenitors of planetary nebulae.

Accepted for publication in PASP (December 2007)

References in corpus (5)

• Spiral structure of the Third Galactic Quadrant and the solution to the Canis Major debate
• Detection of Ks-excess stars in the 14Myr open cluster NGC4755
• Observed Planetary Nebulae as Descendants of Interacting Binary Systems
• Planetary Nebula Candidates in Extragalactic Young Star Clusters
• Local Group surveys for Planetary Nebulae

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Catalogue of central stars of planetary nebulae: Expanded edition
• Discovery of an open cluster with a possible physical association with a planetary nebula
• The ionization structure of multiple shell planetary nebulae: I. NGC 2438
• Photoelectric search for peculiar stars in open clusters. XV. Feinstein 1, NGC 2168, NGC 2323, NGC 2437, NGC 2547, NGC 4103, NGC 6025, NGC 6633, Stock 2, and Trumpler 2
• AAOmega radial velocities rule out current membership of the planetary nebula NGC 2438 in the open cluster M46
• Solving the distance discrepancy for the open cluster NGC 2453. The planetary nebula NGC 2452 is not a cluster member
• On the Crucial Cluster Andrews-Lindsay 1 and a 4% Distance Solution for its PN
• The physical association of planetary nebula NGC 2818 with open cluster NGC 2818A
• The broadening of the main sequence in the open cluster M38