A&A 518, L140 (2010) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201014633 & c ESO 2010 Astrophysics Herschel: the first science highlights Special feature Letter to the Editor The detached dust shells of AQ Andromedae, U Antliae, and TT Cygni, F. Kerschbaum1,D.Ladjal2, R. Ottensamer1,5,M.A.T.Groenewegen3, M. Mecina1,J.A.D.L.Blommaert2, B. Baumann1,L.Decin2,4, B. Vandenbussche2 , C. Waelkens2, T. Posch1, E. Huygen2, W. De Meester2,S.Regibo2, P. Royer 2,K.Exter2, and C. Jean2 1 University of Vienna, Department of Astronomy, Türkenschanzstraße 17, 1180 Vienna, Austria e-mail:
[email protected] 2 Instituut voor Sterrenkunde, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200 D, 3001 Leuven, Belgium 3 Royal Observatory of Belgium, Ringlaan 3, 1180 Brussels, Belgium 4 Sterrenkundig Instituut Anton Pannekoek, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403, 1098 Amsterdam, The Netherlands 5 Institute of Computer Vision and Graphics, TU Graz, Inffeldgasse 16/II, A-8010 Graz, Austria Received 31 March 2010 / Accepted 12 May 2010 ABSTRACT Detached circumstellar dust shells are detected around three carbon variables using Herschel-PACS. Two of them are already known on the basis of their thermal CO emission and two are visible as extensions in IRAS imaging data. By model fits to the new data sets, physical sizes, expansion timescales, dust temperatures, and more are deduced. A comparison with existing molecular CO material shows a high degree of correlation for TT Cyg and U Ant but a few distinct differences with other observables are also found. Key words. stars: AGB and post-AGB – stars: carbon – stars: evolution – stars: mass-loss – infrared: stars 1.