Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
The ionized hydrogen regions seen on monochromatic Hα photographs of nearby spiral galaxies (e.g. Fig. 1) can be divided into four classes (Monnet, 1971): (1) bright, condensed, classical HII regions; (2) diffuse emission in the arms surrounding and connecting the classical regions (emission measure (EM) ∼ 150 cm−6 pc, for a gas electron temperature of 6000 K); (3) much fainter, diffuse emission extending over the entire disk (EM ∼ 50 cm−6 pc) in most Sc and Sd galaxies; (4) diffuse emission in the nuclear region.