We have measured the angular distributions of elastic scattering and 6,4He fragments produced in the collisions of an exotic beam of 8He on a 208Pb target at laboratory energies of 18 and 22 MeV, just around the Coulomb barrier (19 MeV). The measurements were performed at the SPIRAL/GANIL facility in Caen, France. In this paper, we present preliminary data on elastic cross sections and discuss the results using optical model and coupled reaction channel calculations. ispartof: ACTA PHYSICA POLONICA B vol:43 issue:2 pages:239-245 ispartof: location:Piaski, Poland status: published