Talk abstract details

Our understanding of the diversity of planetary nebulae (PNe) has been significantly enhanced as a result of several recent large PN surveys, particularly MASH and IPHAS. These new surveys have uncovered substantial numbers of evolved, obscured, and/or unusual PNe that are providing important clues to the origin, evolution and nature of these fascinating sources. These discoveries suggest that the `PN phenomenon' is in fact more heterogeneous than previously envisaged. Even after the careful elimination of nebular mimics from volume-limited samples of PNe using our newly developed multi-wavelength discriminators, there remains a surprising diversity in the population of Galactic disk PNe and their central stars. Indeed, several evolutionary scenarios are implicated in the formation of objects presently catalogued as PNe. I will summarise these evolutionary pathways, before presenting data on the relative frequencies of different types of PNe in volume-limited 1.0~kpc and 2.0~kpc samples centred on the Sun. Our data provide an important new benchmark for confrontation with stellar evolution theory and population synthesis models.