Deep Narrowband Photometry of the M101 Group: Strong-Line Abundances of 720 HII Regions

Understand

We present deep, narrowband imaging of the nearby spiral galaxy M101 and its satellites to analyze the oxygen abundances of their HII regions.

• Using CWRU's Burrell Schmidt telescope, we add to the narrowband dataset of the M101 Group, consisting of H$\alpha$, H$\beta$, and [OIII] emission lines, the blue [OII]$\lambda$3727 emission line for the first time.
• This allows for complete spatial coverage of the oxygen abundance of the entire M101 Group.
• We used the strong-line ratio $R_{23}$ to estimate oxygen abundances for the HII regions in our sample, utilizing three different calibration techniques to provide a baseline estimate of the oxygen abundances.