NGC 6537 is an extremely high excitation bipolar planetary nebula. It exhibits a huge range of excitation from lines of [N I] to [Si VI]or [Fe VII], i.e. from neutral atoms to atoms requiring an ionization potential of ~ 167eV. Its kinematical structures are of special interest. We are here primarily concerned with its high resolution spectrum as revealed by the Hamilton Echelle Spectrograph at Lick Observatory (resolution ~0.2Å) and supplemented by UV and near-UV data. Photoionization model reproduces the observed global spectrum of NGC 6537, the absolute Hβ flux, and the observed visual or blue magnitude fairly well. The nebulosity of NGC 6537 is likely to be the result of photo-ionization by a very hot star of Teff ~ 180,000 K, although the global nebular morphology and kinematics suggest an effect by strong stellar winds and resulting shock heating. NGC 6537 can be classified as a Peimbert Type I planetary nebula. It is extremely young and it may have originated from a star of about 5 M⊙.

We have investigated the intensities and full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the high dispersion spectroscopic N III emission lines of AG Peg, observed with the Hamilton Echelle Spectrograph (HES) in three different epochs at Mt. Hamilton’s Lick Observatory. The earlier theoretical Bowen line study assumed the continuum fluorescence effect, presenting a large discrepancy with the present data. Hence, we analyzed the observed N III lines assuming line fluorescence as the only suitable source: (1) The O III and N III resonance line profiles near λ 374 were decomposed, using the Gaussian function, and the contributions from various O III line components were determined. (2) Based on the theoretical resonant N III intensities, the expected N III Bowen intensities were obtained to fit the observed values. Our study shows that the incoming line photon number ratio must be considered to balance at each N III Bowen line level in the ultraviolet radiation according to the observed lines in the optical zone. We also found that the average FWHM of the N III Bowen lines was about 5 km·s-1 greater than that of the O III Bowen lines, perhaps due to the inherently different kinematic characteristics of their emission zones.