The Sharpless Catalog

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Sh 2-211

Coordinates: (154.60°, 2.40°)
Distance: 5154 pc, Size: 5.7 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..213P

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-211

Contains infrared cluster [BDS2003] 66 and is embedded in the same CO cloud as Sh 2-212.

Sh 2-212

Coordinates: (155.40°, 2.60°)
Distance: 6593 pc, Size: 18.2 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..213P

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-212

Contains the star cluster NGC 1624 and is located inside the same CO cloud as Sh 2-211.

Sh 2-213

Coordinates: (157.09°, -3.63°)
Distance: 5300 pc, Size: 1.5 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..133R

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-213

Sh 2-213 may be a very faint Stromgren sphere around a B4 class star in the cluster Berkeley 11. If so, it likely lies at a distance of 2100 parsecs.

Sh 2-214

Coordinates: (157.59°, -3.91°)
Distance: 200 pc, Size: 0.2 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..133R

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-214

Beyond a short string of red pixels (which could be an artifact of the photographic plate) there is no visible nebulosity in this image.

Sh 2-215

Coordinates: (158.32°, -5.67°)
Distance: 200 pc, Size: 0.1 pc
Source: 2003A&A...397..133R

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-215

Avedisova places this local hairpin shaped molecular cloud in star formation region SFR 158.32-5.67 with the cool M5-class star HD 276164.

Sh 2-216

Coordinates: (158.59°, 0.75°)
Distance: 120 pc, Size: 2.8 pc
Source: 1995ApJ...447..257T

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-216

This is the closest known planetary nebula and one of the oldest.

Sh 2-217

Coordinates: (159.16°, 3.30°)
Distance: 5200 pc, Size: 13.6 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-217

Sh 2-217 contains 4100 solar masses of material.

Sh 2-218

Coordinates: (159.54°, 11.29°)
Distance: Unknown

[ See details ] 		Sh 2-218

Very faint and diffuse nebula.

Sh 2-219

Coordinates: (159.36°, 2.60°)
Distance: 4200 pc, Size: 3.7 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-219

Sh 2-219 is ionised by a B0 V star, Sh 2-219 no. 194, in an embedded star cluster.

Sh 2-220

Coordinates: (160.31°, -12.34°)
Distance: 400 pc, Size: 37.3 pc
Source: 1982ApJS...49..183B

[ Find on map | See details ] 		Sh 2-220

This is the California nebula, which glows from radiation released from Xi Persei.


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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.