在《行星状星云概论（英文）》中，作者将研究行星状星云是什么，它们从哪里来，又将去向哪里。作者将讨论是什么机制导致了这些恒星消亡的美丽标记，以及是什么导致它们形成了各种各样的形状。
　　《行星状星云概论（英文）》作者还将探讨如何测量行星状星云的各个方面，例如其组成。尽管作者将对行星状星云进行某些方面的数学处理，但主要观点应该是那些只有有限的数学背景的让人容易理解的内容。
　　《行星状星云概论（英文）》的结尾部分附有一些简短的词汇表，在每章的末尾都包含了一个广泛的参考书目，作者特别鼓励有兴趣的读者更深入地了解这些文章。

　　Our lives here on our small world are intimately tied to the lives of the stars. The matter that we are made of was mostly made either in the cores of stars or in the explosion of stars. In both cases we owe our existence to the deaths of a untold numbers of stars billions of years in the past. Our own star， the Sun， will also succumb to the march of time. Having spent its nuclear fuel it will also send the elements it made during its lifetime into the Galaxy. It is possible that in the Sun's death throes it will become a planetary nebula.
　　Planetary nebulae mark the deaths of low and intermediate mass stars. Though not as instantaneously spectacular as the supernova deaths of high mass stars， planetary nebulae have a beauty all their own. Though we have observed them for a few hundred years， it is only in the past few decades that we have figured out what they are and their place in the lives of stars. Even now there are many aspects of planetary nebulae that elude our understanding making these objects the subject of active research.
　　In this book we will look at what planetary nebulae are， where they come from and where they go. We will discuss what mechanisms cause these beautiful markers of stellar demise as well as what causes them to form their variety of shapes. How we measure various aspects of planetary nebulae such as what they are made of will also be explored. Though we will give some aspects of planetary nebulae mathematical treatment， the main points should be accessible to people with only a limited background in mathematics. A short glossary of some of the more arcane astronomical terms is at the end of the book to help in understanding， Included at the end of each chapter is an extensive bibliography to the peer reviewed research on these objects and I would encourage the reader interested in an even deeper understanding to read these articles.

　　杰森·J.西山（Jason J.Nishiyama），加拿大卡尔加里莱斯布里奇大学的讲师，也是加拿大皇家天文学会卡尔加里中心Wilson Coulee天文台的主任，拥有澳大利亚墨尔本的斯威本科技大学的天文学硕士学位。

Preface
Acknowledgements
Author biography

1 Introduction
1．1 Planetary nebulae
1．2 Discovery and history
1．2．1 Initial discovery
1．2．2 Naming
1．2．3 The road to understanding
1．2．4 Origins and fate revealed
1．2．5 Methods of discovery
1．3 Components of planetary nebulae
1．3．1 Nebular envelope
1．3．2 Central star
References

2 Formation of planetary nebulae
2．1 Planetary nebulae as a stage in stellar evolution
2．1．1 Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
2．1．2 Stellar evolution——main sequence to the AGB
2．1．3 Evolution to the asymptotic giant branch
2．1．4 The asymptotic giant branch
2．1．5 Mass loss
2．2 Proto-planetary nebulae
2．2．1 Morphology
2．3 Progenitor masses
2．3．1 Calculation of white dwarf mass
2．3．2 Calculation of progenitor mass
2．3．3 Fate outside of the bounds
2．4 Post-planetary nebula
2．4．1 White dwarf physical characteristics
2．4．2 White dwarf observational and chemical characteristics
2．5 Interacting stellar winds
2．5．1 The model
2．5．2 Limitations of the model
References

3 Observational data of planetary nebulae
3．1 Chemical abundance
3．1．1 Observed abundance
3．1．2 Galactic chemical gradient
3．1．3 Galactic chemical enrichment
3．2 Distance determination
3．2．1 Difficulties in determining distance
3．2．2 Techniques for determining distance
References

4 Planetary nebula morphology
4．1 Classifying planetary nebulae
4．1．1 Chemical classification
4．1．2 Morphological classification
4．2 Morphology， classification and planetary nebulae evolution
4．2．1 Morphology and planetary nebulae abundance
4．2．2 Morphology and progenitor star mass
4．3 Explaining morphology
4．3．1 Round morphology
4．3．2 Elliptical morphology
4．3．3 Bipolar morphology
4．3．4 Point symmetric morphology
4．4 Concluding remarks
References

Glossary
Symbols
编辑手记