The luminous blue variable star
HR Carinae

A radio image of the Luminous Blue Variable star HR Carinae, made with the Australia Telescope. The nebula seen in this image is material which once was part of the outer layers of the star, but was then ejected during a relatively recent period of instability. The mass of the nebula is probably several times the mass of our Sun. In this system the star is not actually at the center of the nebula, but rather is the bright peak just to the right of the peak at the center of the nebula.