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A.R. Hajian (USNO), T.L. Klayton (Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology), D. Reed, B. Balick (Univ. of Washington), N. Panagia, S. Giovanardi, S. Casertano, H. Bond (STScI), and Y. Terzian (Cornell University)
We present results recently obtained from a continuing program of measuring direct distances to galactic planetary nebulae by detecting the expansion parallaxes of their envelopes. We report on the measurement of the optical expansion parallax of NGC 6543 using two epochs of narrowband HST-WFPC2 data. With images separated in time by <3 years we have measured the \approx10 mas motion of the nebula with formal errors of \approx10%. We discuss the astrophysical implications of this technical achievement, and the application to population studies of planetary nebulae.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: hajian@fornax.usno.navy.mil