Wolf-Rayet stars

The Wolf-Rayet stars are massive stars (more than 25 solar masses), in a advanced stage of evolution and ejecting at high speed a hot gas (winds of 2000 km/s typically). They have exceptional hot surface temperature, about 100.000 K. The spectrum presents strong emission widened lines. Wolf-Rayet stars have lost their atmospheres and have exposed their heavy cores. One finds there the signature of ions of helium, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in the spectra.

There are 2 class Wolf-Rayet star: type WN where dominates the ions of helium and nitrogen and type WC where dominates the ions of carbon, oxygen and helium.

The Wolf-Rayet stars are very rare. One counts some hardly more than 150 in our galaxy. One will find below a list of bright Wolf-Rayet accessible since the northern hemisphere. The co-ordinates are into 2000.0 equinox.

 WR      HD          R.A.          Dec.       Type    V

  1     4004      0 43 28.4     +64 45 35     WN5   10.12
  2     6327      1 05 23.0     +60 25 19     WN2   11.43
  3     9974      1 38 55.7     +58 09 23     WN3   10.62
  4    16523      2 41 11.6     +56 43 50     WC5    9.98
  5    17638      2 52 11.7     +56 56 07     WC6   10.51
  6    50896      6 54 13.0     -23 55 42     WN5    6.74
  7    56925      7 18 29.2     -13 13 01     WN4   11.74
110   165688     18 07 57.0     -19 23 56     WN6    9.81
111   165763     18 08 28.5     -21 15 11     WC5    7.68
113   168206     18 19 07.4     -11 37 58     WC8    9.18
123   177230     19 03 59.0     -04 19 02     WN8   10.88
127   186943     19 46 15.9     +28 16 19     WN4   10.19
128   187282     19 48 34.2     +18 11 32     WN4   10.50
132   190002     20 01 41.8     +32 34 40     WC6   11.55
133   190918     20 05 57.3     +35 47 17     WN4    6.78
134   191765     20 10 14.2     +36 10 35     WN6    8.02
135   192103     20 11 53.5     +36 11 51     WC8    8.51
136   192163     20 12 06.5     +38 21 17     WN6    7.44
137   192641     20 14 31.8     +36 39 39     WC7    7.95
138   193077     20 17 00.0     +37 25 23     WN5    8.06
139   193576     20 19 32.4     +38 43 54     WN5    8.27
140   193793     20 20 28.1     +43 51 17     WC7    6.88
141   193928     20 21 31.8     +36 55 13     WN6    9.74
143   195177     20 28 24.3     +38 36 55     WC5   12.32
148   197406     20 41 21.6     +52 35 16     WN7   10.30
152   211564     22 16 35.7     +55 36 55     WN3   11.62
153   211853     22 18 45.6     +56 07 35     WN6    9.03
154   213049     22 27 17.7     +56 15 12     WC6   10.94
155   214419     22 36 54.0     +56 54 21     WN7    8.86
157   219460     23 15 12.6     +60 27 01     WN4   10.13