Abstract
Planetary nebulae (PN) are nothing to do with planets but are the ghostly, glowing shrouds of dying stars. They are extremely powerful astrophysical tools and fascinating objects in their own right. They offer a brief window into the soul of most stars lives, including our own Sun and also hold the solution to mysteries of late stage stellar evolution. Over the last 15 years significant numbers of Galactic PNe have been discovered, more than doubling the totals accrued by all telescopes over the previous 200+ years. Most of these discoveries have been made by the team at Macquarie University. The scope for modern PNe studies for the ~3500 Galactic PN now known should now reflect this new landscape, coloured and nuanced by these new discoveries and the massive, new high sensitivity, high resolution, multi-wavelength imaging surveys now available. Following this motivation we provide, for the first time, an accessible, reliable on-line "one-stop" imaging and spectroscopic database for essential, up-to date information for all known Galactic PN to provide the community with the most complete data with which to undertake new science!
In this presentation Professor Parker will describe this powerful new utility and the associated fundamental PN research that has been undertaken and is still underway at Macquarie University.
Coffee and tea will be served 20 minutes prior to the seminar.