The Sharpless Catalog
Click on the small images to see larger ones.
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I've created a good image of Sh 2-211 using IPHAS data.
Sh 2-212
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Avedisova concludes that Sh 2-212 is ionised by two uncatalogued stars, of classes O6.5 V and B0 V. These appear to be recorded in SIMBAD as MFJ SH 2-212 2 (O5.5) and MFJ SH 2-212 4 (B0).
Sh 2-213
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Sh 2-214
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Sh 2-215
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Sh 2-216
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Sh 2-217
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Russeil places Sh 2-217 in the same star formation complex as Sh 2-219 and BFS 44.
Sh 2-218
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The direction high above the galactic plane and the association with a dark nebula suggests a local dust cloud, but there are no significant references in the scientific literature to confirm this.
The nebula is visible in infrared as can be seen in this WISE image.
Sh 2-219
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The nebula is very young - perhaps only about 100 thousand years old. There is also an embedded star cluster to the southwest and a nearby 2000 solar mass molecular cloud
Russeil places Sh 2-219 in the same star formation complex as Sh 2-217 and BFS 44.
Sh 2-220
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Avedisova places the California nebula in star formation region SFR 160.00-12.31 with 17 components. Among these are the dark nebula LDN 1449, five infrared sources and several reflection nebulae, including GM 1-14 and VDB 24. VDB 24 includes the young Orion-type variable star XY Per.
Avedisova also places Sh 2-220 in SFR 173.50-15.0 (the Taurus dark clouds). It is highly unusual for Avedisova to place the same nebula into two star formation regions (perhaps one of these is an error?).
This region is indeed part of the local Taurus dust cloud complex (which also extends in the direction of the constellation Perseus). You can see an interesting large scale image of this region in infrared (part of the Milky Way Explorer). This is part of the Gould Belt, our local region of the Milky Way.
You can view an astonishing narrow-band false colour image of the California nebula here.
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Stewart Sharpless published the second and final version of his famous nebula catalog in 1959. Although astronomers publish articles referring to the Sharpless nebulae almost every month, there seems to be few places on the Internet that bring together information on these nebulae as a whole - unlike, for example, the Messier catalog. This is most likely because the Messier objects are visible to anyone with a pair of binoculars or a small telescope. Most of the Sharpless objects are clearly visible only in CCD images or in photographic plates taken by large telescopes. Fortunately some of these plates have now been digitally scanned and made publicly available.
Many of the brightest and most beautiful Milky Way star formation regions visible from the northern hemisphere are in the Sharpless catalog so the 313 objects it contains are well worth examining carefully. (In fact there are more than 313 objects as subsequent research has shown that some of the Sharpless nebulae consist of more than one object.) Although the Sharpless catalog is only intended to be complete for objects visible north of declination -27 degrees, a similar catalog covering the southern hemisphere was published by Alex Rodgers, Colin Campbell, and John Whiteoak in 1960, which is largely an expansion of Colin Gum's earlier catalog. You can visit a gallery of these RCW nebulae here. At least 50 objects in the Sharpless catalog are also in the RCW catalog and I have noted this in the descriptions of these objects.
Most of the images used to illustrate the Sharpless catalog were created using the POSS-II/UKSTU data of the
Digitized Sky Survey, or, where available, the more detailed
SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey. In both cases, green = UKST Infrared.
Because green represents infrared, the images are not quite
the same as would be seen at purely visual frequencies. Green in these images usually reveals warm dust or red giant stars.
These images were created using the POSS-II/UKSTU data of the
Digitized Sky Survey and
SuperCOSMOS
using the process described here.
According to my correspondence with the Royal Observatory Edinburgh and the Space Telescope Science Institute,
I am allowed to use the POSS-II/UKSTU data to
create and display images for non-commercial purposes
so long as I include this fine print for the SuperCOSMOS data:
Use of these images is courtesy of the UK Schmidt Telescope (copyright in
which is owned by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council of
the UK and the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board) and the Southern Sky Survey
as created by the SuperCOSMOS measuring machine and are reproduced here
with permission from the Royal Observatory Edinburgh.
and this acknowledgement taken from the DSS site:
The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under
U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic
data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope.
The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with the permission of these institutions.
The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II) was made by the
California Institute of Technology with funds from the National Science Foundation,
the National Geographic Society, the Sloan Foundation, the Samuel Oschin Foundation,
and the Eastman Kodak Corporation.
The UK Schmidt Telescope was operated by the Royal Observatory Edinburgh,
with funding from the UK Science and Engineering Research Council
(later the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council), until 1988 June,
and thereafter by the Anglo-Australian Observatory. The blue plates of the southern Sky Atlas
and its Equatorial Extension (together known as the SERC-J), as well as the Equatorial Red (ER),
and the Second Epoch [red] Survey (SES) were all taken with the UK Schmidt.
The "Second Epoch Survey" of the southern sky was made by the
Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) with the UK Schmidt Telescope.
Plates from this survey have been digitized and compressed by the ST ScI.
The digitized images are copyright © 1993-5 by the Anglo-Australian Observatory Board,
and are distributed herein by agreement.
The "Equatorial Red Atlas" of the southern sky was made with the UK Schmidt Telescope.
Plates from this survey have been digitized and compressed by the ST ScI.
The digitized images are copyright © 1992-5, jointly by the UK SERC/PPARC
(Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council,
formerly Science and Engineering Research Council) and the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board,
and are distributed herein by agreement.
The compressed files of the "Palomar Observatory - Space Telescope Science Institute Digital Sky Survey"
of the northern sky, based on scans of the Second Palomar Sky Survey are copyright © 1993-1995 by the
California Institute of Technology and are distributed herein by agreement.
The compressed files of the "Palomar Observatory - Space Telescope Science Institute Digital Sky Survey"
of the northern sky, based on scans of the Second Palomar Sky Survey are copyright © 1993-1995
by the California Institute of Technology and are distributed herein by agreement.