In the last decade there has been a considerable increase in the amount of
near infrared [SIII] emission line data. We have compiled from the literature
all the HII region like objects for which measurements of these lines,
together
with optical emission lines exist. The sample includes HII regions in our own
Galaxy, HII regions in spirals and irregular galaxies and HII galaxies. The
data are presented in Table 1, where the
logarithmic intensities of the emission lines with respect to
H
are given,
together with their
corresponding observational errors when quoted in the original
reference. These
references are numbered in column 3 and listed at the bottom of the table.
The observed intensities were corrected for reddening according to the derived
logarithmic extinction at
H listed in the last
column of the table and a
standard reddening law. The sample comprises a total of 196 objects.
Only 65 of these objects have electron temperatures derived directly.
Table 2 lists for these objects their electron
temperature, in units of 104 K, and
their derived oxygen abundance expressed as 12 + log [O/H].
The electron temperature has been derived from the measured intensity of
the [OIII] 
4363 line except
for the objects marked with an asterisk for which
a measurement of the [OII]
7327 line has been used. The total
oxygen abundance has been calculated as
log[O/H] = log([(O+) / (H+)] + [(O++) /
(H+)]). The errors in the abundances have been derived from
those quoted for the emission lines
whenever possible. For the HII regions in the Magellanic Clouds
(Dennefeld & Stasiska
1983)
we have adopted an abundance error of ± 0.10.
The oxygen abundance ranges from 2% solar for IZw18 to 70% solar for region VS24 in NGC 2403.
We have included in the table data for three regions of metallicity close to solar for which detailed modelling has been made: CC93 in M33 (Vílchez et al. 1988), S5 in M101 (Shields & Searle 1978; Díaz et al. 1990) and the nucleus of NGC 3310 (Pastoriza et al. 1993).