Over the last year, I've added a number of powerful tools for mapping the Milky Way to this site, including the Avedisova Catalog, the Milky Way Explorer, and the Commentary on the Galactic Plane.
Recently I've been expanding my illustrated guide to the Sharpless Catalog using information from these new tools. Sometimes, however, there just isn't enough information published in the scientific literature about some of these interesting objects and then at least a detailed image can point to some of the mysteries still to be resolved.
This is the case for Sh 2-168, a compact HII region that appears to be embedded in the expanding ring of gas and dust surrounding the Cas OB5 association in the Perseus arm. Below is an image created from the wonderful IPHAS hydrogen-alpha data using the procedure described here. (You can click on it for a larger version).
Avedisova concludes that this nebula is ionised by the O9 V star LS I +60 50. (SIMBAD reports a slightly cooler B0 V class.) Not surprisingly, this is the bright star near the central bright emission (just above the emission and slightly to the left). What I find interesting, however, are the objects visible in or near the disturbed area to the top left (northeast). At the edge of this region (and embedded in Sh 2-168) there seems to be a compact star cluster. I can't find a reference to this cluster in the scientific literature and perhaps it has never been closely examined. Bica and colleagues have reported a loose cluster visible in infrared in this nebula ([BDS2003] 47) and perhaps this compact grouping is part of that, but it doesn't seem to fit their description.
