AB7 was first listed by Azzopardi and Vigneau as a probable member of the Small Magellanic Cloud and noted to be a Wolf Rayet star.

[6] AB7 lies at the centre of a bubble nebula shaped and ionised by powerful stellar winds from the stars within it.

N76 lies between two other prominent HII regions: the larger brighter N66, which contains the unusual HD 5980 LBV/WR/O triple system; and the fainter N78.

It has the appearance of a ring but is actually an approximately spherical shell, interstellar material sculpted and ionised by the winds of the central stars, similar to a planetary nebula but much larger.

The stars of NGC 371 are scattered over twice the diameter of N76, around 100 parsecs, and might better be described as a stellar association than an open cluster.

[7] High resolution spectra allowing separation of the lines from each component during their orbit gave WN2 + O6I(f) with considerable uncertainty.

Faint NIII lines are seen which would not normally be found in such an early WN star, but these were assigned to the companion.

Theories include that this might be related to the colliding winds or possibly due to an asymmetric disc around the stars.

[3] Calibrating the secondary mass to match its spectral type gives an orbital inclination of 68°.

[4] The total visual brightness of AB7 can be determined fairly accurately at absolute magnitude (MV) −6.1, 23,500 times brighter than the sun.

The O star dominates the visual spectrum and produces around 70% of the brightness, leading to MV −5.7, and −4.4 for the primary.

[4] The temperature of a star can be determined in several different ways: from the spectral type; directly from atmospheric models; and from the ionising effects of its radiation.

[7] The temperatures can be calculated directly by modelling the atmospheres of both stars to reproduce the observed spectrum in detail.

[15] A model has been developed to show the evolution of a binary system leading to the currently observed state of AB7.

The more massive primary leaves the main sequence after approximately 3.3 million years and overflows its roche lobe.

[4] The original chemical abundances of the two stellar components are assumed to be typical of the SMC, with metallicity 1/5th to 1/10th of solar levels.

In its current evolved state, the WR component shows dramatically different abundances, with hydrogen less than 20% at the surface, nitrogen almost undetectable, significant carbon enrichment, and most of the rest helium.

[19] In both the primary and secondary star, their cores will eventually collapse, resulting in a supernova explosion.

The initially-more massive primary will collapse first, probably as a type Ic supernova, within a few hundred thousand years.

Massive stars at SMC metallicity may produce a low luminosity supernova, or even collapse directly to a black hole without a visible explosion.