CORONOGRAPHIC IMAGING OF THE BIPOLAR NEBULA AROUND THE LUMINOUS BLUE VARIABLE R127

New images of the nebula surrounding the luminous blue variable (LBV) R127 have been obtained with the Johns Hopkins Adaptive Optics Coronograph. These images reveal, for the first time, the detailed morphology of the nebula and show it to be highly asymmetric with large variations in surface brightness. The nebula has linear dimensions of 1.9 x 2.2 pc, assuming a distance to the LMC of 51.2 kpc. The nebular mass, calculated from the integrated Halpha flux, is 3.1 M., which is similar to that of the AG Carinae nebula. The coronographic images of the R127 nebula support a recent model of R127 which suggests that an equatorial circumstellar disk is responsible for the observed polarimetric and spectroscopic properties of the star (Schulte-Ladbeck et al. 1993). The images also suggest an evolutionary link between the mechanism responsible for the mass-loss episode which created the nebula and the current mass-loss properties of the system.