The Size and Age of Sakurai's Planetary Nebula and the Temperature of Its Central Star

摘要

We present high-resolution, spatially resolved spectra of the nebula surrounding Sakurai's object. We find the expansion velocity of the nebula to be 30.9 ± 0.7 km s-1, and the nebula extent to be 44'' in diameter. We discuss the wide range of reported distances to Sakurai's object and the dilemma that these present, since some evidence strongly favors a short distance (1.1 kpc) while other data strongly favor a longer distance (5–8 kpc). We also present spectra of Sakurai's star centered near the λ4216 CN band that suggests the star had cooled significantly between 1996 October and 1997 May, but had not cooled further by 1997 July.