In 1966, a search for Wolf-Rayet stars in the northern celestial hemisphere discovered seven new examples.
[5] In 1981, described as a WC-OVI star, it was identified as being associated with the active star-forming region ON2,[11] and then a heavily obscured open cluster designated Berkeley 87, 9.5′ south of the red supergiant BC Cygni.
[12] WR 142 is usually assumed to be a member of the open cluster Berkeley 87, whose distance from the Sun is not very well known but thought to be around 1.23 kiloparsecs (4,000 light-years).
Very strong stellar winds, with a terminal velocity of 5,000 kilometers per second are causing WR 142 to lose 10−5 M☉/year.
Hard X-ray emission has been detected from this star with the help of the Chandra space telescope, that has been suggested to be caused by the presence of a companion, a B-type main sequence star located at a distance of 1 AU from WR 142.