Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2016
The ionization structure of nebulae depends on the spectral energy distribution of the ionizing stars. Therefore nebulae are potential tools to check the validity of the energy distribution predicted by stellar atmosphere models. However, the problem is complicated by the fact that the ionization structure also depends on the nebular density distribution and that the predictions of photo-ionization models strongly rely on atomic physics computations, which bear their own uncertainties.