The physics and kinematics of the evolved, interacting planetary nebula
  PN G342.0-01.7
  Here we aim to study the physical and kinematical characteristics of the
unstudied old planetary nebula (PN) PN G342.0-01.7, which shows evidence of
interaction with its surrounding interstellar medium. We used Integral Field
Spectra from the Wide Field Spectrograph on the ANU 2.3 m telescope to provide
spectroscopy across the whole object covering the spectral range 3400-7000
{\AA}. We formed narrow-band images to investigate the excitation structure.
The spectral analysis shows that the object is a distant Peimbert Type I PN of
low excitation, formally of excitation class of 0.5. The low electron density,
high dynamical age, and low surface brightness of the object confirm that it is
observed fairly late in its evolution. It shows clear evidence for dredge-up of
CN-processed material characteristic of its class. In addition, the low
peculiar velocity of 7 km s$^{-1}$ shows it to be a member of the young disk
component of our Galaxy. We built a self-consistent photoionisation model for
the PNe matching the observed spectrum, the H$\beta$ luminosity, and the
diameter. On the basis of this we derive an effective temperature $\log T_{\rm
eff} \sim 5.05$ and luminosity $1.85 < \log L < 2.25$. The temperature is much
higher than might have been expected using the excitation class, proving that
this can be misleading in classifying evolved PNe. PN G342.0-01.7 is in
interaction with its surrounding interstellar medium through which the object
is moving in the south-west direction. This interaction drives a slow shock
into the outer PN ejecta. A shock model suggests that it only accounts for
about 10\% of the total luminosity, but has an important effect on the global
spectrum of the PN.
