The Sharpless Catalog

Click on the small images to see larger ones.

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Sh 2-91

Coordinates: (64.06°, 4.42°)
[ See details ]

Sh 2-91, Sh 2-94 and Sh 2-96 are all filaments of the supernova remnant SNR 065.2+05.7, which has a diameter of about 70 parsecs and an age of about 20 thousand years.

Avedisova places Sh 2-91 in the star formation region SFR 64.06+4.42, along with the Footprint nebula.

The image here shows only a small section of this nebula. You can view a larger and more detailed image of this nebula here.

Sh 2-92

Coordinates: (64.07°, 1.65°)
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Sh 2-92 is ionised by the Wolf-Rayet star WR 127, a binary star with an O9V companion.

Avedisova adds a second ionising star, the O7 Ib supergiant HD 332755.

Sh 2-93

Coordinates: (64.1°, -0.5°)
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Ionised by the O9V star [F89b] S93 1 and contains the infrared star cluster [BDS2003] 16.

You can see a Spitzer infrared image here.

Sh 2-94

Coordinates: (64.91°, 6.77°)
[ See details ]

Sh 2-91, Sh 2-94 and Sh 2-96 are all filaments of the supernova remnant SNR 065.2+05.7, which has a diameter of about 70 parsecs and an age of about 20 thousand years.

Sh 2-95

Coordinates: (65.9°, 0.6°)
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This is the planetary nebula NGC 6842.

Sh 2-96

Coordinates: (66.1°, 7.18°)
[ See details ]

Sh 2-91, Sh 2-94 and Sh 2-96 are all filaments of the supernova remnant SNR 065.2+05.7, which has a diameter of about 70 parsecs and an age of about 20 thousand years.

Sh 2-97

Coordinates: (66.86°, 0.9°)
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Sh 2-97 is ionised by at least four stars - two B1V, one B0.5V and one with a spectral type between O9V and B0V.

MSX appears to reveal a bubble-like structure for Sh 2-97 in infrared.

Sh 2-98

Coordinates: (68.15°, 1.02°)
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This is a ring nebula associated with a 3000 solar mass molecular cloud and the Wolf-Rayet star WR 130.

It contains the infrared star cluster [BDS2003] 17.

A faint ring can be seen in infrared in this MSX image.

Sh 2-99

Coordinates: (70.14°, 1.74°)
[ See details ]

This star formation complex is embedded in the massive W58 radio source and molecular cloud, and is catalogued by Avedisova as SFR 70.29+1.60. The region also includes Sh 2-100, 5 masers, and numerous additional radio and infrared sources including 7 HII regions.

Available distance estimates suggests that the W58 molecular cloud is located in the Perseus arm.

The W58 region can be seen in this MSX infrared image.

Sh 2-100

Coordinates: (70.3°, 1.6°)
[ See details ]

This star formation complex is embedded in the massive W58 radio source and molecular cloud, and is catalogued by Avedisova as SFR 70.29+1.60. The region also includes Sh 2-99, 5 masers, and numerous additional radio and infrared sources including 7 HII regions.

Sh 2-100 itself consists of two distinct nebulae - K3-50 (W58A) and NGC 6857.

Available distance estimates suggests that the W58 molecular cloud is located in the Perseus arm.

The W58 region can be seen in this MSX infrared image.

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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.