A spatially resolved study of ionized regions in galaxies at different ...

82 3 • IFS of a GEHR in NGC 6946
pointing for each knot. Finally, we built an integrated spectrum over the full FOV of our
IFS dataset, both from the mosaic and from the one pointing data. Therefore, we ended
up with ten spectra: five absolute flux calibrated spectra from the mosaic data covering the
range 3700-7000 Å for the four main knots and the whole FOV, and other five spectra of the
same areas coming from the blue and red first pointing covering the range 3700-10000 Å. All
the fibers containing WR features were included in these integrated spectra, since the WR
positions are near the peak of Hα, as shown in Figure 3.22.
The spectra of the four knots (labelled from A to D) and the integrated spectrum of the
whole PPak-field with some of the relevant identified emission lines are shown in Figures
3.23 (Knot A and B), 3.24 (Knot C and D) and 3.25 (PPak-field). The spectrum of each
knot is split into two panels. All of them come from the blue and red first pointing.
Line intensity ratios for the most relevant emission lines were measured in each spectrum
using the splot task in IRAF following the procedure described in Hägele et al. (2006). A
pseudo-continuum has been defined at the base of the hydrogen emission lines to measure
the line intensities and minimize the errors introduced by the underlying population. As we
have seen in section 3.4.1, this procedure gives the same results, within the observational
errors, as fitting synthetic SSP models to the continuum. Since we had to measure auroral
lines, we decided to measure manually all the lines. The statistical errors associated with
the observed emission fluxes have been calculated using the same procedure as described in
section 3.4.2 (see expression there).
As reported in section 3.3.9, the [Siii] λ 9532 Å line is affected by strong narrow water
vapour lines and therefore its value has been set to 2.44, its theoretical ratio to the weaker
[Siii] λ 9069 Å.
The reddening coefficient c(Hβ) has been calculated using the same procedures as described
in section 3.4.4. The only difference is that an iterative method to estimate the
temperature and density has been used in each case when the appropriate lines were available.
To minimize the errors and to follow a similar approach as when deriving the maps,
we have estimated c(Hβ) only by means of Hα and Hβ.
Tables 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6 give the equivalent widths and the reddening-corrected emission
line fluxes for six integrated spectra together with the reddening constant and its error,
taken as the uncertainty of the least-squares fit and the reddening-corrected Hβ intensity.
The adopted reddeningcurve, f(λ), normalized to Hβ, is given in column 2 of each table. The
errors in the emission lines were obtained by propagating in quadrature the observational
errors in the emission-line fluxes and the reddening constant uncertainties.
Table 3.4 presents the results for the integrated spectra from the entire PPak FOV for
the mosaic exposure (PPak field Mosaic) and for the blue and red first pointing (PPak field
Mosaic). As it can be seen, the relative intensities and equivalent widths are in very good
agreement, within the errors, confirming the previous assumption.
Tables 3.5 and 3.6 show the results for the integrated spectra from the blue and red first