Galactic PNe statistical distance scale

It is based on the correlation between the ionized mass and the radius and the correlation between the radio continuum surface brightness temperature and the nebular radius. The proposed statistical distance scale is an average of the two distances obtained using the correlations.

These correlations, calibrated on the 132 planetary nebulae with well-determined individual distances by Zhang, can reproduce not only the average distance of a sample of Galactic Bulge planetary nebulae exactly at the distance to the Galactic center, but also the expected gaussian distribution of their distances around the Galactic center. This new distance scale is applied to 647 Galactic planetary nebulae. It is estimated that this distance scale can be accurate on average to 35%-50%.