IRAS 16115-5044 has been identified as a possible post-AGB star on the basis of its position in the IRAS 2-colour diagram (van der Veen et al. 1989). A study by Van de Steene and Pottasch (1993) failed to detect any radio-continuum flux from the object, suggesting it is still in the pre-planetary nebula phase, that is, the central star is not yet hot enough to ionize the circumstellar shell.

The central star is bright in the infrared (K=4.9) but faint in the visible which we attribute to an optically thick circumstellar shell (J-K=2.61, van der Veen et al. 1989). Oudmaijer et al. (1995) obtained a K-band spectrum of lRAS 16115-5044 longward of 2.2 microns, and did not detect any discernable features.