WR134 - Wolf-Rayet star in Cygnus (Fran D.)

WR134 - Wolf-Rayet star in Cygnus

WR (Wolf-Rayet) 134 is a variable star located approximately 6,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. WR 134 was one of three stars in Cygnus observed in 1867 by Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet having an unusually intense emission spectrum rather than the more stellar-normal continuum/absorption line spectrum. These were the first members of the class of stars that came to be called Wolf-Rayet stars . WR stars are extremely rare; only 500 have been found in the Milky Way, plus a few hundred in surrounding galaxies.

Wolf-Rayet stars, are the most massive and brightest stars known. They are generally 20 times the mass of our sun and hundreds of thousands to millions of times brighter, having temperatures exceeding 50,000 degrees F. Because stars this massive can not stay together long, they burn up their fuel quickly and blast their mass into space, eventually tearing themselves apart. This radiation drives very strong stellar winds, blowing at over ten million miles per hour. WR134 is surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. It is five times the radius of the sun, but due to a its temperature of greater than 63,000 K, it is 400,000 times as luminous as our Sun. WR134 is also cataloged as HD191765.

There are actually three additional WR stars shown in my image. I have included an annotated image with these stars annotated: WR133/HD190918 WR135/HD192103 WR137/HD192641

WR135 (HD192103) lies less than a degree away from WR 134. The two stars are believed to lie at approximately the same distance from Earth. Both stars lie within a shell of hydrogen thought to have been swept up from the interstellar medium when one or both stars were on the main sequence. It is unclear which of the two stars is primarily responsible for creating the shell.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8210495
PixInsight job	EAQM33DLM1N77UUXHCR8YMY9FU9M4F95
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	20h10m11s.11
RA (top/left)	20h11m54s.59
RA (top/right)	20h04m20s.83
RA (bottom/right)	20h08m30s.36
RA (bottom/left)	20h16m01s.86

Dec (center)	+36°13′36″.5
Dec (top/left)	+37°21′35″.5
Dec (top/right)	+36°05′32″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	+35°05′34″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	+36°20′39″.1

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