Spectroscopy and Narrow Band Imaging of PAHs in HII regions and Planetary Nebulae using FLITECAM

FLITECAM, the first light test camera being developed for NASA's SOFIA aircraft has been used successfully on the Shane 120 inch telescope at Lick Observatory on six occasions, most recently to commission the grism spectroscopy mode. Utilizing 3 direct-ruled KRS-5 grisms, this mode provides R 1700 spectroscopy in 9 bands from 1-5 microns for a 1 arcsec slit (2.4 pixels). One of the spectral bands covers the 3.3 micron PAH emission feature. Although difficult to observe from the ground, we have used this emission feature to survey a sample of young and proto-planetary nebulae, carbon stars, and HII regions. On extended sources we also used FLITECAM's wide-field imaging mode to construct narrow-band images centered on and near the 3.3 micron PAH feature. These maps were then used to position FLITECAM's 1 x 60 arcsecond slit on the most prominent areas of PAH emission. The planetary nebulae surveyed with FLITECAM were selected from lists of IRAS and ISO targets. All the selected nebulae have C/O ratios larger than 1, and several targets were known to exhibit PAH emission at longer wavelengths. NGC 7027, a young and highly energetic planetary nebula exhibits the strongest 3.3 micron PAH emission in our survey, as well as strong atomic line emission. Our current sample of 21 PNs shows 12 with PAH emission. None of the carbon stars in our survey showed either PAH or atomic line emission. Narrow band images of the star-forming regions S106, the Orion bar and NGC 1333 reveal clumps of PAH emission. In S106 and Orion the position of peak PAH emission is clearly offset from the position of peak Brackett-Gamma emission by several arcseconds. E. Smith is funded by a NASA GSRP fellowship. Funding for FLITECAM is provided by USRA and UCLA.