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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
The class of Low-Excitation Herbig-Haro Objects are characterised by [SII] and [OI] lines which are comparable in strength to H-Alpha, by [NI] lines that are comparable to H-Beta, relatively weak [NII] and [OII] lines, little or no [OIII] emission and a very strong blue-UV “excess”. This blue and UV continuum in low-excitation HH Objects was noted as a problem by Brugel, Böhm and Mannery (1981), Ortalani and D'Odorico (1980) and Böhm, Böhm-Vitense and Brugel (1981). The first suggestion that it results from collisionally enhanced Hydrogen two-photon (2q) continuum was by Dopita (1981). The subsequent observations of Dopita, Binette and Schwartz (1982) proved that this was indeed the case. However, although very close correlations between this enhancement and the emission-line spectrum were found, a fair theoretical description could only be obtained for very youthful shock models with ages of order 30 years. However, there seems to be no reason why low excitation HH shocks should be much younger than the high excitation shocks.