Optical spectroscopy of IRAS 02091+6333^*

¹ Institut für Astrophysik der Leopold–Franzens–Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
² Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200 B, 3001 Leuven, Belgium
³ Mercator Telescope, Calle Alvarez de Abreu 70, 38700 Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain
⁴ Astrophysics Group, Department of Physics, UMIST, PO Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK

Corresponding author: S. Kimeswenger, stefan.kimeswenger@uibk.ac.at

Received: 22 April 2003
Accepted: 16 June 2003

Abstract

We present a detailed spectroscopic investigation, spanning four winters, of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star IRAS 02091+6333. Zijlstra & Weinberger (2002) found a giant wall of dust around this star and modelled this unique phenomenon. However their work suffered from the quality of the optical investigations of the central object. Our spectroscopic investigation allowed us to define the spectral type and the interstellar foreground extinction more precisely. Accurate multi band photometry was carried out. This provides us with the possibility to derive the physical parameters of the system. The measurements presented here suggest a weak irregular photometric variability of the target, while there is no evidence of a spectroscopic variability over the last four years.