Massive kinematics of planetary nebulae in NGC 5128 with VLT FLAMES

M. Rejkuba and J. R. Walsh
European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany


FLAMES, the Fibre Large Array Multi-Element Spectrograph is the multi-object, intermediate and high resolution spectrograph of the VLT with a 25 armcin corrected field of view. In the MEDUSA mode it can observe up to 130 objects simultaneously through 1.2" fibres at a resolution R=6000 to 30000. It is thus ideally suited for kinematical studies of large samples of PN around nearby galaxies.
During the FLAMES Science Verification run we used its lower resolution (R~8000) mode in the wavelength range from 450 to 507 nm to observe PN in NGC 5128 from the Hui et al. (1993) catalogue. Available fibres were also placed on 48 known globular clusters in this galaxy. The velocities of 529 PN were measured from the [O III]5007 Å emission line, and, where available, also from [OIII]4959 Å and Hβ; in some cases we detected He II 4686Å as well. A synopsis of the data is presented. Among the most interesting results, achieved on account of the relatively high resolution, was the detection of multiple emission line components, arising from chance line-of-sight coincidences of PN.