VLA Measurements of a sample of Planetary Nebulae

We report on new radio measurements of Galactic planetary nebulae, aimed at resolving the controversies on the reliability of older VLA flux densities and the suggested deviations from the standard Galactic extinction law found for planetary nebulae. We show that for faint (<10 mJy) objects observed at high angular resolution, previous determinations are indeed too low. For the bright objects we find no significant differences. The new values are the most accurate flux determinations yet for planetary nebulae, reaching 1% for the brightest objects in the sample. Based on the new data, we confirm that there is a systematic difference between the extinction derived from the radio/Hβ flux ratio and derived from the Balmer decrement, which led to the suggestion of deviations from the standard extinction law. However, final confirmation of this has to await the availibility of more, accurate measurements of the Balmer (and/or Paschen) lines.