The Local Group Census: Planetary nebulae in Sextans B^*

¹ Dipartimento di Astronomia e Scienza dello Spazio, Universitá di Firenze, L.go E. Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy
² Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Apartado de Correos 321, 38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canarias, Spain
³ Physics Department, UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK
⁴ School of Pure and Applied Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 9NN, Northern Ireland, UK
⁵ ST-ECF, E.S.O., Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany

Corresponding author: R. Corradi, rcorradi@ing.iac.es

Received: 21 December 2001
Accepted: 26 February 2002

Abstract

Five planetary nebulae (PNe) have been discovered in the nearby dwarf irregular galaxy. Emission line images were obtained using the Wide Field Camera of the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) at La Palma (Spain). The candidate PNe were identified by their point-like appearance and relatively strong [O iii] emission-line fluxes. They are located within a galactocentric distance of 2.8 arcmin, corresponding to 1.1 kpc at the distance of Sextans B. Luminosities are in the range 1800–5600. Sextans B is one of the smallest dwarf irregular galaxies with a PN population. The number of PNe detected suggest an enhanced star formation rate between 1 and 5 Gyr ago.