Perplexing, enigmatic and astonishing--no single word captures the essence of the Red Rectangle. This <a href="http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0408b/" rel="nofollow">series of images</a> from a simulation of the Red Rectangle helped me to better understand its structure.

I tried to show the torus of dust obscuring the central binary star system. The center is very bright and it's easy to lose that detail, which looks like a darker vertical line crossing the center in this image. In order to do this I applied the luminosity of the very central region of the F658N data to the other two channels since it shows up most clearly there. I also very carefully removed diffraction spikes by selectively reducing their curves rather than other methods such as cloning which I feel more greatly compromises the object's integrity.

Red: HST_10851_01_ACS_HRC_F658N_sci Green: HST_10851_01_ACS_HRC_F625W_sci Blue: hst_07297_01_wfpc2_f467m_pc_sci