Chemical Abundances in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae

Abstract

Optical spectroscopic data for 71 Planetary Nebulae (PN) in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds have been analysed. The line fluxes have been used to determine nebular temperatures, densities, and the abundances of He, N, O, Ne and Ar, relative to H. In our sample there are 12 nebulae with N/O ≥ 0.5, resembling Peimbert's Type I PN; 6 low excitation (LE) objects (1 ≤ I(5007)/I(Hβ) ≤ 4); and 4 very-low-excitation (VLE) nebulae (I(Hβ) > I(5007), similar to the Galactic VLE class. Mean abundances have been calculated for the nebulae not in these special groups.