Abundances in Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae

The line fluxes have been used to determine nebular temperatures, densities, and the abundances of He, N, O, Ne and Ar, relative to H. In our sample there are 12 nebulae with N/O>=0.5, resembling Peimbert's Type I PN; six low-excitation objects [1<=I(5007)/I(H{beat})<=4], and four very-low excitation (VLE) nebulae [I(H{beta})>I(5007)], similar to the Galactic VLE class.

Mean abundances have been calculated for the nebulae not in these special groups. After correction for collisional excitation contributions to the nebular He I lines, PN in the SMC and LMC yield mass fractions of Y=0.249+/-0.025 and Y=0.258+/-0.012, respectively.