Apep, pronounced /ˈɑːpɛp/, was named by a team of astronomers led by Joseph Callingham of ASTRON, who studied the system between 2016 and 2018 and published a scientific paper on their observations.

[5][6] It was named after the mortal enemy of the sun god Ra in Egyptian mythology, who was often illustrated as a giant serpent; their rivalry was described as "an apt allusion" to the appearance of the system and its stellar wind in infrared as "a star embattled within a dragon's coils".

Apep is a triple star system[6][9] containing a Wolf–Rayet binary described as the "central engine", orbiting with a period of ~100 years,[10] and a third hot supergiant star described as the "northern companion", orbiting the central engine at a distance of ~1,700 astronomical units and a period of >10,000 years.

[18] Apep is located in the constellation of Norma, at a right ascension of 16h 00m 50.5s and declination of −51° 42′ 45″,[1] The system can be resolved into two components, the "central engine" Wolf–Rayet binary, and the "northern companion" supergiant.

[22] Surveys conducted with the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s SINFONI instrument on the Very Large Telescope measured the apparent magnitude in the infrared J band for the central engine as 10.2±0.2, and for the northern companion as 9.6±0.2.

[29] Astronomer Joe Callingham first observed Apep during undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney with the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope,[12][30] and was noted as a potential colliding-wind binary, with a radio source as bright as Eta Carinae.