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WR134 is a Wolf-Rayet star located in the constellation Cygnus. The Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars have a high mass -typically over 15 solar masses- and eject mass at tremendous speeds. Two different types of WR stars are known: the WC stars show Carbon emission besides the Hydrogen or Oxygen emissions; the WN stars show no Carbon emission but they show Nitrogen emission in their spectra. WR134, with a mass of 18 solar masses, belongs to the WN class. Due to their mass, their temperature is usually higher than 25,000 degrees Kelvin and consequently their stellar winds directly affect the gas clouds surrounding the nebula by carving, usually, circular structures. WR134 is not an exception to this -with a surface temperature 63,000 K- and the main oddity of it is that the circular structure around it emits in the greenish-blue color of Oxygen, [OIII] at 500.7 nm. Often, the WR stars are in a double star system. WR134 is also classified as an Algol-type binary variable, but the nature of its companion is not yet fully understood. Another oddity of WR134 is that its period, just over 2.25 days, is not constant and can vary with time. In 2008, N. St-Louis et al., determined that the rotation speed of WR134’s surface was 70 km/s (compared to our Sun: 1.67 km/s).
This very deep image, taken with narrowband filters (Halpha, [OIII] and [SII]), has been color mapped to natural colors and the stars have been taken with the usual RGB filters.
Additional Information
Object
Name(s): WR134. V1769 Cyg
Type: Ejection Nebula of a Wolf-Rayet star
RA: 20h 10m 14s
Dec: +36º 10’ 35”
Constellation: Cygnus
Size (arcmin): 32×32 arcmin
Magnitude: +8.1
Distance: 5,700 ly
Image
Date: 2022-11-08 to 2023-06-08
Location: Curiosity2 Observatory, New Mexico Skies, Mayhill, NM, USA
Size (arcmin): 30×30 arcmin
Telescope: 24” (61 cm) f/6.5 Reflector
Camera: FLI PL16803 (4096x4096pix)
Guiding: Astrodon MonsterMOAG off-axis guider
Total exposure: 49 hours (Ha: 16h 40m; OIII: 23h 20m; SII: 6h; RGB: 3h)
Processing: CCDStack, PixInsight (one step) and Photoshop CC 2023