Chemical Composition of Planetary Nebulae: The Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds

Abstract

An analysis is made of the abundances of planetary nebulae (PN) in the Galaxy (MW), the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The data has been gathered by the IAG/USP group in a homogeneous procedure, involving observational techniques, data acquisition and reduction. Emphasis is placed on distance-independent correlations, which are particularly important for PN in the galactic disk. It is shown that (i) our abundances are comparable to the accurate abundances of nebulae with ISO data, (ii) most abundance correlations hold for all three systems, taking into account the metallicity differences between the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, and (iii) there is a good general agreement of our data with the predictions of recent theoretical models for PN progenitors.