  We present an analysis of 17 H-rich central stars of planetary nebulae (PNe)
observed in our spectroscopic survey of nuclei of faint Galactic PNe carried
out at the 10-m Hobby-Eberly Telescope. Our sample includes ten O(H) stars,
four DAO white dwarfs (WDs), two DA WDs, and one sdOB star. The spectra were
analyzed by means of NLTE model atmospheres, allowing us to derive the
effective temperatures, surface gravities, and He abundances of the central
stars. Sixteen of them were analyzed for the first time, increasing the number
of hot H-rich central stars with parameters obtained through NLTE atmospheric
modeling by approximately 20%. We highlight a rare hot DA WD central star,
Abell 24, which has a $T_\mathrm{eff}$ likely in excess of 100kK, as well as
the unusually high gravity mass of $0.70 \pm 0.05 \mathrm{M}_\odot$ for the
sdOB star Pa 3, which is significantly higher than the canonical extreme
horizontal-branch star mass of $\approx 0.48\,\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$. By
investigating Zwicky Transient Facility light curves, which were available for
our 15 northern objects, we found none of them show a periodic photometric
variability larger than a few hundredths of a magnitude. This could indicate
that our sample mainly represents the hottest phase during the canonical
evolution of a single star when transitioning from an asymptotic giant branch
star into a WD. We also examined the spectral energy distributions, detecting
an infrared excess in six of the objects, which could be due to a late-type
companion or to hot ($\approx 10^3$ K) and\or cool ($\approx 100$ K) dust. We
confirm previous findings that spectroscopic distances are generally higher
than found through Gaia astrometry, a discrepancy that deserves to be
investigated systematically.
