Surveys for Planetary Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds

George H. Jacoby
WIYN Observatory, Tucson, Arizona, USA


As the nearest major hosts of extragalactic planetary nebulae, the Magellanic Clouds have been the first and most frequent targets of extragalactic PN surveys. I will review the unique roles that these two samples of PN play in the context of extragalactic PN studies, and, in particular, the extraordinary opportunities they offer for detailed analyses of individual objects as representatives for stellar population studies, and for the interplay between stellar and galactic evolution. Surveys for PN in the Clouds, though, are challenged by their own set of difficulties, such as rare contaminants (novae, SNRs, small HII regions, diffuse ISM), they require large format cameras to completely cover the necessary field of view, and follow-up confirmation and study is complicated by field crowding. I will present cautionary examples of these problems, as well.