The method that combines near-IR and IRAS photometric data is used successfully on a new sample and has lead to the identification of 20 new infrared carbon star candidates. The nature of 8 out of them, measured in optical spectroscopy is confirmed. In addition, a few stars with LRS "4n" are found to be oxygen rich while a few "0n" and "1n" stars are carbon rich.
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to the technical staff of the Observatoire de Haute Provence for his help during the observations, to B. Brockmann at Département de Recherche Spatiale of Observatoire de Paris for his constant effort for an optimal running of the InSb photometer and to the Bureau des Longitudes team for providing us the CCD camera and particularly to F. Colas for giving us his image acquisition and analysis software working on a PC microcomputer, ASTROL.