Abstract

In this paper, we describe the results obtained in our study of Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars of the WN type, using the APOGEE2 spectrographs. The APOGEE2 WN star near-infrared spectra presented here were selected through a careful examination of the APOGEE2 DR16 sample, being compound of at least one exemplar of each Wolf-Rayet star from WN4 to WN11 types. Besides the APOGEE2 WN sample, we also identified three new Galactic exemplars of the WN type. The first is WR 147-1, a narrow-lined Wolf-Rayet star of the WN4-5 type located in the direction of the Cygnus-X North complex. The two remaining objects, WR 48-11 and WR 48-12, are found at projected angular distances of several arcminutes southwest from the Danks 1 cluster. WR 48-12 has an estimated heliocentric distance of 7.0(-3.0)(+5.0) kpc, which is not compatible (within the quoted uncertainties) with that of about 3.8 +/- 0.6 kpc for the G305 complex. On the other hand, WR 48-11 has a probable heliocentric distance of 19.0(-4.7)(+6.5) kpc, which is about three times that of the former, implying that it is probably placed well behind the G305 complex, perhaps at the outermost portion of the Perseus arm.