HE 3-1475 AND ITS JETS

We present spectra and high-resolution images taken with HST, the NTT, the VLA, and the MPIA/ESO 2.2m of the emission-line star He 3-1475 which we suggest is a post-AGB star. The star is at the origin of a 15-arcsec-long structure containing symmetrically opposing bright knots. The knots have radial velocities of about 500 km/s from the center of He 3-1475 to the ends of the jets. HST snapshots show that the core of He 3-1475 is unipolar with a star at the SE end and the nebula fanning out toward the NW. VLA observations show the presence of OH masers, which are positioned parallel to the optical jets. A model is proposed that accounts for all of the observational data. This unusual object may link the OH/IR stars having extreme outflow velocities with highly bipolar planetary nebulae.
14 pages, uu-encoded postcript. 6 figures available on request from Matt Bobrowski (matt@cta.com)