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E.C. Galle (SAO), P.F. Winkler (Middlebury Coll.), R.C. Smith (CTIO)
As part of the Magellanic Cloud Emission-Line Survey (MCELS), we examined a 2\fdg8 \times 2\fdg5 region at the center of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)\@. Samples of planetary nebulae (PNe) have become important because of the role of the PN Luminosity Function (which uses [\ion{O}{3}] \lambda5007 fluxes) as an extragalactic distance indicator. Previous studies have identified 99 confirmed or candidate planetary nebulae (PNe) in the SMC, only 27 of which have published [\ion{O}{3}] fluxes. Of the 69 objects in our survey region, careful measurement of the coordinates shows that 8 are duplicates, while 10 appear to be spurious identifications. We have determined accurate coordinates and measured fluxes in both the [\ion{O}{3}] \lambda5007 and H\alpha\ lines for all 51 remaining PNe. In addition we have identified 13 new candidate PNe and have measured fluxes for these as well. We will present an [\ion{O}{3}] luminosity function for our expanded sample of PNe in the SMC, which extends to lower luminosities than previous studies.
MCELS, a joint project between CTIO and the University of Michigan, is the first CCD survey of the Clouds in emission lines and is being carried out from the 0.6-m Curtis Schmidt telescope at CTIO. Both the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds are being imaged in three lines: H\alpha, [\ion{S}{2}] \lambda\lambda 6717,6731, and [\ion{O}{3}] \lambda5007, plus red and green continuum bands.
This research has been supported by the NSF through grant AST-9618465 and by the Sigma Xi society through a Grant-in-Aid of Undergraduate Research.