An automated scheme for the large-scale survey of Herbig-Haro objects

Owing to their spectral properties, Herbig-Haro (HH) objects can be discove red using photometric methods through a combination of filters, sampling th e characteristic spectral lines and the nearby continuum. The data are comm only processed through direct visual inspection of the images. To make data reduction more efficient and the results more uniform and complete, an aut omated searching scheme for HH objects is developed to manipulate the image s using IRAF. This approach helps to extract images with only intrinsic HH emissions. By using this scheme, the pointlike stellar sources and extended nebulous sources with continuum emission can be eliminated from the origin al images. The objects with only characteristic HH emission become prominen t and can be easily picked up. In this paper our scheme is illustrated by a sample field and has been applied to our surveys for HH objects.