The Sharpless Catalog

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Sh 2-151

Coordinates: (108.58°, -2.75°)
Distance: 2400 pc, Size: 14.0 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-151

The only thorough paper that analyses Sh 2-151 adopts a kinematic distance of 5800 pc. Five molecular clouds are part of the Sh 2-151 complex and have a total of 29 thousand solar masses. About 700 solar masses has been ionised by an unseen star that is likely obscured by dust in one of the molecular clouds.

A fuzzy but interesting image that shows the molecular cloud structure of Sh 2-151 can be seen in this MSX mid-infrared image here. This image is very similar to the radio image shown in figure 2a of the above mentioned paper.

Sh 2-152

Coordinates: (108.80°, -1.00°)
Distance: 4705 pc, Size: 5.3 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..213P

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-152

The adjacent HII regions Sh 2-152 and Sh 2-153 appear to be physically related, with a major source of the ionising radiation being located in Sh 2-152 in an unnamed O9V star.

Sh 2-153

Coordinates: (108.80°, -1.00°)
Distance: 4705 pc, Size: 5.3 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..213P

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-153

The adjacent HII regions Sh 2-152 and Sh 2-153 appear to be physically related with Sh 2-153 being the larger and fainter nebula in the image.

Sh 2-154

Coordinates: (108.96°, 1.59°)
Distance: 1000 pc, Size: 17.5 pc
Source: 2000ApJ...537..221U

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-154

Distance should be corrected to 1000 pc.

Sh 2-155

Coordinates: (110.15°, 2.61°)
Distance: 730 pc, Size: 12.7 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-155

The Cave Nebula interacts with the Cepheus B molecular cloud.

Sh 2-156

Coordinates: (110.10°, 0.00°)
Distance: 4891 pc, Size: 5.1 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..213P

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-156

Also called IC 1470, this HII region is part of the star cluster NGC 7510. It appears to be ionised by a single O7 class star. The bright core is only one of five distinct and apparently independent emission sources within a giant molecular cloud. The distance is estimated to be about 3500 to 4000 parsecs.

Sh 2-157

Coordinates: (111.29°, -0.66°)
Distance: 2500 pc, Size: 65.5 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-157

This is a ring nebula around WR 157, in the Basel 3 (Markarian 50) cluster that is in turn part of Cas OB2.

Sh 2-158

Coordinates: (111.50°, 0.80°)
Distance: 2800 pc, Size: 1.3 pc
Source: 2004ApJ...616.1042O

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-158

This is NGC 7538, a major star formation region in Cas OB2. It is surrounded by the much larger diffuse nebula Sh 2-161B.

Sh 2-159

Coordinates: (111.60°, 0.40°)
Distance: 6334 pc, Size: 1.7 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..213P

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-159

Both Sh 2-158 (NGC 7538) and Sh 2-159 are embedded in the 595 thousand solar mass molecular cloud [UUT2000] Cloud G. This cloud is surrounded by the much larger diffuse nebula Sh 2-161B.

All of these objects are part of the dusty Cas OB2 association.

Russeil gives a distance estimate of 2970 +/- 310 parsecs for Sh 2-259 in a 2007 paper and identifies an O9 V class ionising star. However, she gives no catalog designation and neither SIMBAD nor the Reed catalog lists a star at the location she provides.

A wide area image that includes Sh 2-159 can be seen here.

Sh 2-160

Coordinates: (111.93°, 4.08°)
Distance: 900 pc, Size: 20.9 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-160

The HII region Sh 2-160 is located near or within the Cep OB3 association, which is part of the relatively nearby Cepheus molecular clouds, as can be seen on this face-on map. Sharpless lists three possible ionising stars including the B0 III giant HD 218323, which Humphreys assigns to Cep OB3.

You can read more about the Cep OB3 association towards the bottom of the page describing the Brain and Bubble (120° - 110°) sector, which is part of the Commentary on the Galactic Plane.

You can see a good image by Mel Martin of this 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 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.

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.