THE ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL      VOLUME 106, NUMBER 1, PAGE 56           JULY 1993

              STATISTICS AND PROPERTIES OF HII REGIONS IN NGC 6814

                                JOHAN H. KNAPEN

 Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
  and Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Postbus 800, NL-9700 AV Groningen,
                                The Netherlands
                          Electronic Mail: jhk@iac.es

                               NINA ARNTH-JENSEN

   Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Astrophysics Group,
  The Blackett Laboratory, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BZ, Great Britain

                        JORDI CEPA AND JOHN E. BECKMAN

 Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
                    Electronic Mail: jen@iac.es, jeb@iac.es


                                   ABSTRACT

    We present a new Halpha image of high quality of the grand-design
    galaxy NGC 6814, and describe statistical properties of the HII region
    population.  We have determined positions, angular sizes, and
    calibrated fluxes of 735 individual HII regions.  We construct
    luminosity functions (LFs) for the complete sample, separately for arm
    and interarm regions, and for HII regions within and outside the
    limiting radius corresponding to the bright optical disk.  The slope of
    the LF for the complete sample agrees well with values published for
    other Sbc and Sc galaxies.  LFs for HII regions in the arms, in the
    interarm regions, in the inner part, and in the outer part of the
    galaxy all have the same slopes.  We show and discuss the diameter
    distribution of the HII regions, both for the complete sample and for
    the separate arm, interarm, inner, and outer disk samples.  There is no
    evidence for a different population of HII regions in the spiral arms,
    nor is there evidence for the existence of a significant population of
    density-bounded HII regions.  We discuss implications for massive star
    forming processes in this galaxy, and discuss possible differences from
    other grand-design spirals.