A dusty nebula around the luminous blue variable candidate HD 168625
Abstract
On the basis of narrow-band visible and near-infrared imagery as well as high-resolution spectroscopy, we report the discovery of a new LBV-type nebula around the B supergiant HD 168625. We find that it essentially consists of a dusty expanding shell from which seems to emerge a bipolar emission nebula, the whole embedded in a reflection nebulosity. The inner shell is stratified: the continuum emission arises beyond the ionized gas, and is possibly due to scattering of stellar light by large dust grains or to non-equilibrium dust emission. The unexpected presence of unidentified infrared emission bands (UIRs) in the spectrum of this object is also discussed. We finally report the non-detection of a comparable nebula around the nearby LBV HD 168607.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- October 1994
- Bibcode:
- 1994A&A...290..906H
- Keywords:
-
- LUMINOUS BLUE VARIABLE STARS;
- CIRCUMSTELLAR MATTER;
- EMISSION NEBULAE;
- DUST;
- HD 168625;
- HD 168607