Abstract
Planetary nebulae are formed by illumination of material lost during the Mira evolutionary phase together with a smaller amount of material coming from a later, fast wind. While textbooks tell us this is the fate of all intermediate‐mass stars, there are problems in accounting for (a) the rapid evolution in effective temperature required for this to work and (b) the non‐spherical shapes of most PNe. This has led to the conjecture that many, most or all PNe may originate from stars with companions. A similar conjecture has been made for the origin of the RV Tauri stars. Here, we review what we know of Miras and AGB mass loss, RV Tauri stars and their circumstellar material, and the implications for the origin of planetary nebulae.
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