Research Note

A WN4 companion to BD +62°2296 in Cas OB5^*

¹ Dpto. de Física, Ing. de Sistemas y Teoría de la Señal, Universidad de Alicante, Apdo. 99, 03080 Alicante, Spain
² Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Université, 67000 Strasbourg, France

Corresponding author: ignacio@dfists.ua.es

Received: 19 March 2003
Accepted: 7 July 2003

Abstract

I report observations of the triple system BD +62°2296 showing that all its components are early-type stars, most likely physically related. The faintest component BD +62°2296B is a hitherto uncatalogued Wolf-Rayet star. The brightest component, star A, is shown to be a seemingly normal B2.5Ia supergiant. Long-slit spectroscopy of BD +62°2296B shows it to be a narrow-lined WN4 star. Given the spatial separation, the two objects are unlikely to form a physical binary. Spectra of the third visual component, BD +62°2296C, allow its classification as a B0III star. Such concentration of massive stars strongly suggests that BD +62°2296 is in reality a very compact young open cluster in the area of the OB association Cas OB5.