The extinction distances for over a thousand planetary nebulae with Gaia measurements

¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China
² Institute for Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 102206, PR China
³ CAS Key Laboratory of Optical Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China
⁴ Department of Astronomy, China West Normal University, Nanchong 637000, PR China

^★ Corresponding authors: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 4 January 2026
Accepted: 3 March 2026

Abstract

Context. Although Gaia has identified the central stars of planetary nebulae (CSPNe) for about 70% of known Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), reliable distance estimates remain highly incomplete, with fewer than one quarter having accurate parallaxes. Mean-while, the classical extinction–distance sample has long been limited to about 70 objects, accounting for only 1.8 of the Galactic PNe population.

Aims. We aim to obtain a large and homogeneous catalogue of PN distances by refining extinction–distance measurements with Gaia DR3, providing a complementary method to CSPN-parallax-based distances.

Methods. We developed a Gaia-based extinction–distance method for PNe by combining an improved blue-edge approach with an extinction-jump model. Planetary nebula distances were inferred from stellar extinction jumps in line-of-sight extinction–distance profiles and constrained by comparisons with published distances, stellar spatial distributions relative to the PN centre, and the PN radius–distance relation.

Results. We obtain distances for 1066 PNe, with a median relative uncertainty of 13% and below 20% for about 87% of the sample. This sample includes 765 objects whose CSPN parallaxes have relative uncertainties greater than 20% and 128 objects without CSPN parallaxes. Our method not only complements CSPN parallax-based approaches for PN distance determination but also extends the traditional extinction-based approach to higher Galactic latitudes. In cases where published distance estimates for the same PN differ significantly, the method helps identify the more reliable distance. In addition, it helps evaluate the reliability of CSPN identifications. We find a likely misidentification in the reported CSPN for Fr2–36, and further analyse 33 PNe with two different CSPNe identifications, suggesting a more suitable CSPN for 15 objects. The resulting catalogue is the largest homogeneous set of extinction-based PN distances to date and provides a robust benchmark for studies of Galactic structure, PN populations, and interstellar extinction.