Detection of the Central Star of the Planetary Nebula NGC 6302

Abstract

NGC 6302 is one of the highest ionization planetary nebulae known and shows emission from species with ionization potential >300eV. The temperature of the central star must be >200,000K to photoionize the nebula, and has been suggested to be up to ~ 400,000K. On account of the dense dust and molecular disc, the central star has not convincingly been directly imaged until now. NGC 6302 was imaged in six narrow band filters by Wide Field Camera 3 on HST as part of the Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations. The central star is directly detected for the first time, and is situated at the nebula centre on the foreground side of the tilted equatorial disc. The magnitudes of the central star have been reliably measured in two filters(F469N and F673N). Assuming a hot black body, the reddening has been measured from the (4688-6766Å) colour and a value of c=3.1, A_v=6.6 mag determined. A G-K main sequence binary companion can be excluded. The position of the star on the HR diagram suggests a fairly massive PN central star of about 0.64,M_sun close to the white dwarf cooling track. A fit to the evolutionary tracks for (T,L,t)=(200,000K, 2000L_sun, 2200yr), where t is the nebular age, is obtained; however the luminosity and temperature remain uncertain. The model tracks predict that the star is rapidly evolving, and fading at a rate of almost 1 % per year. Future observations could test this prediction.

13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ Letters on 25.09.2009 accepted on 19.10.2009

References in corpus (5)

• The Evolution of NGC 7027 at Radio Frequencies: A New Determination of the Distance and Core Mass
• Hubble-type outflows of the high-excitation, poly-polar planetary nebula NGC 6302 -- from expansion proper motions
• White dwarf masses derived from planetary nebulae modelling
• The massive expanding molecular torus in the planetary nebula NGC 6302
• Massive expanding torus and fast outflow in planetary nebula NGC 6302

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• Planetary Nebulae with UVIT II: Revelations from FUV vision of Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302
• Modelling the 3D morphology and proper motions of the planetary nebula NGC 6302
• The Effect of the Slit Configuration on the H${}_2$ 1-0~S(1) to Br$\gamma$ Line Ratio of Spatially Resolved Planetary Nebulae