The Spiral Star.
Pretty.
Pretty Funky.
What is this?
Well, it is AFGL3068, aka Carbon Star L3068, aka IRAS 23166_1655, one of the poster images for the "Asymmetrical Planetary Nebula IV" meeting last year.
Soon, hopefully, to be an observing target of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, if Servicing Mission 4 ever takes place, and ACS is actually fixed, and Cycle 17 gets underway.
It is kinda funky.
Tempting to think of a binary companion explanation, but I am curiously prone to think of a binary companion as an explanation for most anything...
Here's the paper: Title: Imaging the circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars, Mauron and Huggins (2006)
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