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Issue A&A Volume 457, Number 1, October I 2006 Page(s) L13 - L16 Section Letters DOI 10.1051/0004-6361:20066039

A&A 457, L13-L16 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20066039

Letter

A deep mosaic of [O III]5007 Å CCD images of the environment of the LBV star P Cygni

P. Boumis¹, J. Meaburn^{1, 2}, M. P. Redman³ and F. Mavromatakis<sup>4

1</sup>  Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, National Observatory of Athens, I. Metaxa & V. Paulou, P. Penteli, 15236 Athens, Greece
    e-mail: ptb@astro.noa.gr
²  Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester, Macclesfield SK11 9DL, UK
³  Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Cosmic Physics, 5 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland
⁴  Technological Education Institute of Crete, General Department of Applied Science, PO Box 1939, GR-710 04 Heraklion, Crete, Greece

(Received 14 July 2006 / Accepted 1 August 2006)

Abstract
A mosaic of six, deep, CCD images in the light of the [O III]5007 Å nebular emission line has been obtained with the 1.3-m Skinakas (Crete) telescope of the filamentary nebulosity surrounding P Cygni. The [O III]5007 Å line discriminates against confusing galactic HII regions along the same sight-lines and the new mosaic did not include the 4.8 mag. central star; a source of artifacts in the previous lower angular resolution observations. New giant "lobes" and "shells" are found to be clustered around P Cygni which must be the relics of historic eruptions between 2400 and up to 10⁵ yr ago.

Key words: stars: circumstellar matter -- stars: variables: general -- stars: individual: P Cygni

© ESO 2006

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