Abstract
Spectroscopy of the nebular (as opposed to the stellar) remnants of old novae can be a powerful diagnostic of physical conditions in, and mode of excitation of, nova shells. While optical spectroscopy of nova shells has been widely used in this way, few are sufficiently well resolved, and sufficiently bright, to be observed with IUE.Combined optical and ultraviolet spectroscopy of only two nova remnants–those of GK Per and DQ Her–have been reported to date. Ferland et al. (1984) demonstrated that the shell of DQ Her is extremely cool (Te ≃ 500 K) and is excited by a hot central source. Bode et al. (1988) showed that the ultraviolet and optical lines in the spectrum of the GK Per nebula can best be understood in terms of shock excitation, consistent with its observed properties at radio wavelengths (Seaquist et al. 1989).
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