SED of a non-spherical model

[Alex Jones]

Hello

The "save continuum" command allows the SED from a Cloudy model to be plotted, however I believe this is only the case for a sphere (as the SED is a result of integrating over 4*pi steradians). Using pyCloudy 3D, I have been generating non-spherical (e.g. elliptical or cylindrical) models of a planetary nebula. Is it possible to generate the total SED from a non-spherical model, in order to compare directly to observations?

Thanks

Alex

[Christophe Morisset]

Hi Alex,

The SED emitted by the whole nebula can be at first order obtained by summing up the continua Cloudy computes. You will be using for each model of the pseudo-3D nebula a weight that corresponds to the angular size of the given 1D model.

The angular size is normalized by 4.pi so that the sum of the weights is 1.0.

You will need to compute the exact values of the weights by yourself, pyCloudy does not have this option yet.

This method is OK for the optically thin emission lines, it will not be right is local absorption occurs. 

I hope it helps, give feedback ;-)

Cheers,

Christophe

[Alex Jones]

Hi Christophe

Thanks for your reply - I'll try out your method and see how it goes.

Cheers

Alex