Hubble Space Telescope images of Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae: Data and correlations across morphological classes

The morphology of planetary nebulae (PNs) provides an essential tool for un derstanding their origin and evolution, since it reflects both the dynamics of the gas ejected at the tip of the asymptotic giant branch phase and the central-star energetics. Here we study the morphology of 27 Magellanic Clo ud planetary nebulae (MCPNs) and present an analysis of their physical char acteristics across morphological classes. Similar studies have been success fully carried out for Galactic PNs but were compromised by the uncertainty of individual PN distances. We present our own Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Faint Object Camera (FOC) images of 15 MCPNs acquired through a narrowband [O III] lambda 5007 filter. We use the Richardson-Lucy deconvolution techn ique on these pre-COSTAR images to achieve post-COSTAR quality. Three PNs i maged before and after COSTAR confirm the high reliability of our deconvolu tion procedure. We derive morphological classes, dimensions, and surface ph otometry for all of these PNs. We have combined this sample with HST/PC1 im ages of 15 MCPNs, three of which are in common with the FOC set acquired by Dopita, et al., to obtain the largest MCPNs sample ever examined from the morphological viewpoint. By using the entire database, supplemented with pu blished data from the literature, we have analyzed the properties of the MC PNs and compared them to a typical, complete Galactic sample. Morphology of the MCPNs is then correlated with PN density, chemistry, and evolution.