THE MANCHESTER OCCULTING MASK IMAGER (MOMI) - FIRST RESULTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT OF P CYGNI

The design and first use of the Manchester occulting mask imager (MOMI ) is described. This device, when combined with the Cassegrain or Ritc hey-Chretien foci of large telescopes, is dedicated to the imagery of faint-line emission regions around bright central sources. Initial obs ervations, with MOMI on the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), of the V = 4.8 mag P Cygni environment have revealed a greater than or equal to 5 arcmin long [N II] lambda 6584-Angstrom emitting filament projecting from the outer nebular shell of this luminous blue variable (LBV) sta r. The presence of a monopolar lobe older than both the inner (22 arcs ec diameter) and outer (1.6 arcmin diameter) shells is suggested.