  We present high-resolution J-, H-, and K-band observations of the carbon star
IRC+10216. The images were reconstructed from 6m telescope speckle
interferograms using the speckle masking bispectrum method. The H image has the
unprecedented resolution of 70 mas. The H and K images consist of at least five
dominant components within a 0.21 arcsec radius and a fainter asymmetric
nebula. The J-, H-, and K-band images seem to have an X-shaped bipolar
structure. A comparison of our images from 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 shows
that the separation of the two brightest components A and B increased from 193
mas in 1995 to 246 mas in 1998. The cometary shapes of component A in the H and
J images and the 0.79 micron and 1.06 micron HST images suggest that the core
of A is not the central star, but the southern (nearer) lobe of the bipolar
structure. The position of the central star is probably at or near the position
of component B, where the H-K color has its largest value of H-K = 4.2. If the
star is located at or near B, then the components A, C, and D are located close
to the inner boundary of the dust shell at separations of 200 mas = 30 AU
(projected distance) = 6 stellar radii for a distance of 150 pc, in agreement
with our 2-dimensional radiative transfer modelling. In addition to IRC+10216
we studied the stellar disks and the dust shells of several related objects.
Angular resolutions of 24 mas at 700 nm or 57 mas at 1.6 micron were achieved.
