Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Henize, K. G..
Optical spectra have been obtained for the recently-discovered faint filamentary halo that surrounds both the extremely young star HD 148937 and the peculiar S-shaped nebula NGC 6164-65. This halo, interpreted to be a wind-generated interstellar bubble, has a spectrum which appears to result from both shock-wave heating and photoionization.
The Spacelab 2 mission, which is scheduled for Space Shuttle Challenger launch in July of 1985, will carry four telescopes for solar study, a dual X-ray telescope for observation of galaxy clusters, and a helium-cooled IR telescope for studies of interstellar clouds and other extended sources. The largest cosmic ray detector carried to space thus far will also be part of the payload. Life science experiment packages will examine the vitamin D chemistry of human blood under zero-G conditions, and the manner in which pine tree seedlings sense gravity and respond to it. Spacelab 2 will carry a crew of seven, including three mission specialists and two payload specialists.
The complete survey takes in 3627 fields, each 4.87 deg in diameter, arranged in a hexagonal pattern superimposed on the celestial equatorial coordinate system. The declination bands are spaced every 3 deg, 20 min. The optical instrument is a folded all-reflecting Schmidt system with an aperture of 0.74 m, a focal length of 2.0 m (f/2.7), a circlar field with a diameter of 4.87 deg, and a limiting image diameter of less than 2 arcsec over the entire field. The detector is an electrographic camera having a photocathode diameter of 170 mm. In discussing the telescope structure, it is pointed out that the optical support system is to be of graphite-epoxy construction. The focal tolerance (the most critical optical tolerance) is to be + or - 12 microns. Regarding contamination control, it is expected that with appropriate design it will be possible to operate in sunlight for observations in a restricted portion of the sky, at least more than 90 deg from the sun, depending on the geometry and reflectivity of the platform or spacecraft configuration.
Low-dispersion ultraviolet spectra from Skylab Experiment S-019 are used to explore the variations of Si IV and C IV line strengths with temperature and luminosity. These considerations lead to a classification system in which the Si/C ratio is used to discriminate luminosity among the O stars and temperature among the O9-B2 stars of lower luminosity. Stars falling in these two regimes may be distinguished either by the presence of C IV emission or on the basis of C IV absorption strength. The log(Si IV/C IV) vs C IV diagram is proposed as a primary tool in such a classification system. The rapid variation in the Si IV/C IV ratio from less than 1/10 at O9 to greater than 10 at B1.5 for luminosity class III-V stars appears to be an especially useful criterion for the temperature classification of stars in this spectral range.
The spectrum of K 1-27 shows He II 4686 stronger than either H-beta or forbidden O III 4959. K 1-27 therefore appears to belong to the small group of old, very hot planetary nebulae which also includes NGC 246, NGC 4361, and Abell 36.
A Mount Stromlo spectrogram of BI Cru taken in 1962 shows emission lines of H I, He I, He II, Fe II, N III, and the forbidden O III, forbidden Ne III, and forbidden S II transitions superposed on a weak bluish continuum. A spectrogram by Allen in 1974 shows emission lines of H I and Fe II and possibly weak He I, forbidden Fe II, and forbidden O I lines superposed on an M-star absorption spectrum. The object is evidently a symbiotic star showing large variations in its spectral character. Significant differences exist in the mean ion velocities and appear to be correlated with ionization potential.
IUE spectra of the white dwarf component of HD 149499, discovered from the Skylab experiments S-019 UV survey, show prominent lines of He II. The star appears to be helium-rich with He/H not less than 1. The ultraviolet fluxes show the temperature to be within the range 70,000-100,000 K, with the most probable value near 85,000 K.
Ultraviolet stellar spectra in the wavelength region from 1300 to 5000 A (130 to 500) were photographed during the three manned Skylab missions using a 15 cm aperture objective-prism telescope. The prismatic dispersion varied from 58 A mm/1 at 1400 A to 1600 A mm/1 at 3000 A. Approximately 1000 spectra representing 500 stars were measured and reduced to observed fluxes. About 100 stars show absorption lines of Si IV, C IV, or C II. Numerous line features are also recorded in supergiant stars, shell stars, A and F stars, and Wolf-Rayet stars. Most of the stars in the catalog are of spectral class B, with a number of O and A type stars and a sampling of WC, WN, F and C type stars. Spectrophotometric results are tabulated for these 500 stars.
A fast wide angle telescope that will be capable of imaging to the darker sky limit and in the ultraviolet wavelength region available above the atmosphere is described. The telescope (SWAT) has a resolution comparable to that of the large ground-based Schmidt telescope and a field of at least five degrees. A number of astrophysically important investigations can only be accomplished with such a telescope, e.g., detection of hidden, hot objects like hot white dwarfs and subwarfs in stellar binary systems, and energetic regions in globular clusters and galaxy nuclei. It permits unique studies of the UV-morphology of extended objects and allows discovery of very faint extensions, halos, jets, and filaments in galaxies. It can contribute to the investigation of dust in the Milky Way and in other galaxies and, with an objective prism, spectra of very faint objects can be obtained. The SWAT will localize objects for further study with the narrow-field Space Telescope.
Graphs of normalized fluxes derived from objective-prism spectra (from the S-019 experiment on Skylab), and C IV profiles are presented. The C IV resonance profile, when studied with respect to bolometric magnitude and effective temperature, reveals mass loss conditions without requiring precise mass loss rates. There is a clear trend in the C IV feature toward more fully developed P Cygni profiles at higher luminosities, and a significant velocity shift in the C IV absorption down to bolometric magnitude approximately equal to -7.7.
Observational data for 20 southern stars having emission-line spectra that suggest a significant degree of mass ejection are given in order to present an atlas of their spectra and to give a quantitative description of their appearance during the 1961-62 epoch. Most of the stars are P Cygni stars; others include nova-like, peculiar Be, and symbiotic stars, as well as stellar planetary nebulae and emission-line binaries, all of whose spectra were obtained with the Newtonian two-prism Zeiss Spectrograph and the 74-inch reflector at Mount Stromlo Observatory. It is noted that among the P Cygni stars, there is a strong correlation between the a-e expansion velocity and the strength of Balmer emission, while in both the P Cygni and the Bep stars, there is positive dependence of Fe II and negative dependence of (Fe II) emission strengths on Balmer emission strength.
Observations of HD 149499 B, the previously unrecognized white dwarf star found by the Skylab ultraviolet objective-prism survey, are discussed. Spectra of the binary HD 149499 AB were obtained by the short wavelength and long wavelength cameras of the IUE, and converted into fluxes. The absorption line strengths of the white dwarf secondary indicate a He/H composition ratio greater than or equal to 1. Comparison with model atmospheres of the IUE data suggests a temperature of around 93,000 K for HD 149499 B, while comparison with visual magnitude data indicates a temperature of 82,000 K. Either temperature value would make the star the hottest white dwarf for which reasonably reliable temperature estimates are available. Future work intended includes the repetition of the Skylab ultraviolet experiment on Spacelab for the detection of a complete sample of hot white dwarfs and subdwarfs.
The star HDE 283048 located at alpha = 3(h)50(m)3, delta = +25 deg 36 min shows a strong ultraviolet continuum. Ground-based observations indicate a hot-dominated composite spectrum. Several lines of evidence suggest that the hot component is a hot subdwarf.
An objective-prism stellar spectrograph of 15-cm aperture was flown on all three Skylab missions. The wavelength region from 1300 A to 5000 A was covered by a special optical system containing a combination of reflecting telescope optics, a CaF2 objective prism, and an achromatized field-corrector lens system of CaF2 and LiF. Observations of 188 star fields, each covering 4.0 x 5.0 deg of arc, were conducted at the Skylab antisolar airlock with the aid of an articulated mirror system which allowed acquisition within a 30 by 360 deg band of the sky.
High-dispersion echelle spectra of the candidate star for the transient X-ray source A0620-00 are discussed. No absorption or emission lines attributed to the star were found under visual examination of the spectra, but interstellar sodium D lines were clearly visible. Results are presented for measurements of the profiles and central velocities of the sodium absorption lines, and other observations of interstellar features in the general direction of the star are summarized. While the exact distance to the star cannot be determined due to the patchy distribution of the interstellar gas, it is suggested that the star is located between 1.5 and 2.5 kpc; 2 kpc is adopted as the most reasonable value. It is noted that the possibility cannot be ruled out that the star lies beyond 3 kpc and is seen through a hole in the distant neutral hydrogen gas.
Observations of Beta Lyr with the Skylab S-019 ultraviolet objective-prism spectrograph show numerous emission lines in the region from 1400 to 2300 A. Some variations in line strength between phases 0.25 and 0.50 are seen, which probably explain the shallowness of the OAO-2 light curve at 1910 A. Many of the emission lines are probably due to intercombination transitions, thus confirming the concept that the emission is produced by collisional excitation in low-density clouds of hot gas.
Several spectra of the optical object identified with the X-ray flare source A0620-00 have been obtained at 5 A/mm with the Cassegrain echelle spectrograph on the 4-m Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. These spectra reveal no significant stellar lines, but the flux distribution in the range 4250-7400 A, dereddened for a color excess of 0.9 mag, is similar to that of an O star. The color excess, which is derived from the observed strength of the 5780-A diffuse interstellar band, and the velocities and strengths of the interstellar Na I D lines imply that the object is between 1.5 and 2.5 kpc from the sun. If a distance of 2 kpc is adopted, then the luminosity of the source in the observed wavelength region is roughly 5 by 10 to the 35th power erg/s. The possibility that this object is a slow nova is discussed.
The letter reports the discovery of a cool star with excess brightness in the vacuum ultraviolet on an objective-prism photograph obtained during the second Skylab mission. This star, HD 149499, is of type K0 V and has a companion with an apparent magnitude of about 11.8; the relatively flat UV spectrum observed at the position of HD 149499 is characteristic of a 10th or 11th magnitude unreddened O- or early B-type star. It is shown that the excess VUV brightness is due to the companion, HD 149499B, which probably lies in the region of the H-R diagram occupied by the hot white dwarfs. Inspection of white dwarf lists indicates that this star is the sixth or seventh brightest white dwarf known. A maximum orbital motion of 0.025 arcsec/yr is estimated along with a period of just under 500 yr.