PN abundances in NGC 5128 with FORS
J. R. Walsh1,
G. Jacoby2,
R. Pelletier3,
N. A Walton4
1ST-ECF, ESO, Garching, Germany
2WIYN, Tucson, USA
3Kapteyn Laboratorium, Groningen, The Netherlands
4Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, England
Catalogued PN in the nearest large elliptical galaxy NGC 5128
(Centaurus-A) have been observed with the VLT FORS1 spectrograph
in multi-slit mode. Three fields with offsets from the galaxy
centre of 4.0, 7.5 and 14.5 arcmin were selected and 21, 20 and
9 PN respectively were observed. Low dispersion blue (3500-6000Å)
and red spectra (4500-8500Å) were obtained covering the strong
diagnostic emission lines. For the brightest spectra, the fainter
diagnostic lines, such as [O III]4363Å, could be detected.
Abundances derived from the PN in the three fields are presented
and discussed with relevance to abundance gradients in elliptical
galaxies.