Infrared Imaging of Planetary Nebulae from the Ground Up

New ground-based telescopes and instruments, the return of the NICMOS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and the recent launch of the Spitzer Space Telescope have provided new tools that are being utilized in the study of planetary nebulae. Multiwavelength, high spatial resolution ground-based and HST imaging have been used to probe the inner regions of young PNe to determine their structure and evaluate formation mechanisms. Spitzer/IRAC and MIPS have been used to image more evolved PNe to determine the spatial distribution of molecular hydrogen, ionized gas, and dust in the nebulae and halos.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, invited review given at IAU Symp. 234, to appear in "Planetary Nebulae in Our Galaxy and Beyond", eds. M. J. Barlow & R. H. Mende

The Near-Infrared Structure and Spectra of the Bipolar Nebulae M 2--9 and Afgl 2688: The Role of UV-Pumping and Shocks in Molecular Hydrogen Excitation

High-resolution near-infrared images and moderate resolution spectra were obtained of the bipolar nebulae M~2--9 and AFGL 2688. The ability to spatially and spectrally resolve the various components of the nebulae has proved to be important in determining their physical structure and characteristics. In M~2--9, the lobes are found to have a double-shell structure. Analysis of \h2\ line ratios indicates that the \h2\ emission is radiatively excited. A well-resolved photodissociation region is observed in the lobes. The spectrum of the central source is dominated by H recombination lines and a strong continuum rising towards longer wavelengths consistent with a $T = 795$ K blackbody. In AFGL 2688, the emission from the bright lobes is mainly continuum reflected from the central star. Several molecular features from C$_2$ and CN are present. In the extreme end of the N lobe and in the E equatorial region, the emission is dominated by lines of \h2 in the 2--2.5 \microns region. The observed \h2 line ratios indicate that the emission is collisionally excited, with an excitation temperature $T_{ex} \approx 1600\pm 100$ K.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures,uuencoded compressed postscript, printed version available by request from [email protected], IfA-94/3

A Semi-Automated Computational Approach for Infrared Dark Cloud Localization: A Catalog of Infrared Dark Clouds

The field of computer vision has greatly matured in the past decade, and many of the methods and techniques can be useful for astronomical applications. One example is in searching large imaging surveys for objects of interest, especially when it is difficult to specify the characteristics of the objects being searched for. We have developed a method using contour finding and convolution neural networks (CNNs) to search for Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) in the Spitzer Galactic plane survey data. IRDCs can vary in size, shape, orientation, and optical depth, and are often located near regions with complex emission from molecular clouds and star formation, which can make the IRDCs difficult to reliably identify. False positives can occur in regions where emission is absent, rather than from a foreground IRDC. The contour finding algorithm we implemented found most closed figures in the mosaic and we developed rules to filter out some of the false positive before allowing the CNNs to analyze them. The method was applied to the Spitzer data in the Galactic plane surveys, and we have constructed a catalog of IRDCs which includes additional parts of the Galactic plane that were not included in earlier surveys.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, one machine-readable table. Accepted for publication in the PAS

The nebulae around LBVs: a multiwavelength approach

We present first results of our study of a sample of Galactic LBV, aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the LBV phenomenon, by recovering the mass-loss history of the central object from the analysis of its associated nebula. Mass-loss properties have been derived by a synergistic use of different techniques, at different wavelengths, to obtain high-resolution, multi-wavelength maps, tracing the different emitting components coexisting in the stellar ejecta: the ionized/neutral gas and the dust. Evidence for asymmetric mass-loss and observational evidence of possible mutual interaction between gas and dust components have been observed by the comparison of mid-IR (Spitzer/IRAC, VLT/VISIR) and radio (VLA) images of the nebulae, while important information on the gas and dust composition have been derived from Spitzer/IRS spectra.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. To appear in proceedings of 39th Liege International Astrophysical Colloquium: The multi-wavelength view of Hot, Massive Star