The abundance properties of nearby late-type galaxies. I. the data

Abstract

We investigate the oxygen and nitrogen abundance distributions across the optical disks of 130 nearby late-type galaxies using around 3740 published spectra of H II regions. We use these data in order to provide homogeneous abundance determinations for all objects in the sample, including H II regions in which not all of the usual diagnostic lines were measured. Examining the relation between N and O abundances in these galaxies we find that the abundances in their centers and at their isophotal R 25 disk radii follow the same relation. The variation in N/H at a given O/H is around 0.3 dex. We suggest that the observed spread in N/H may be partly caused by the time delay between N and O enrichment and the different star formation histories in galaxies of different morphological types and dimensions. We study the correlations between the abundance properties (central O and N abundances, radial O and N gradients) of a galaxy and its morphological type and dimension. © 2014. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.