The answer depends on how rigid and accurately followed the data format is. If those are fixed-width fields, unpack may be best. If it's always the same fields highlighted by stars, split will be fine. Here's a way to get just the highlighted ones, wherever they are:

while (<$fh>) {
    my @star_fields = m/\*([^*]*)\*/g;
    # . . . 
}
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Note the escapes for literal '*'. I imagine those were what were giving you trouble. They will need to be escaped for a split pattern, too.