The size of a Wolf-Rayet star's dust shell measured by speckle interferometry

Abstract

We have resolved the WC9 star Ve 2-45 at a wavelength of 2.2 μm. The shell of circumstellar dust is optically thin, and has a characteristic radius of 0.04 arcsec. This is in agreement with simple models of the dust shell, and will help to constrain more elaborate models, when they become available.