This emission nebula is located 5000 light years away in the constellation of Monoceros at a declination of +3 degrees. It spans about 0.5 degrees, equal to the apparent size of our full moon. The nebula has a width of 40 light years.
This is not a popular narrowband object. It is fairly dim and too close to the showcase Rosette Nebula (2 degrees to the north) to get much attention.
The nebula is the 280th object in the 313 member Sharpless catalog, published by Dr. Stewart Sharpless in 1959. Except for 2 objects, each object in the Sharpless catalogue begins with the prefix Sh2, since the final list of 313 objects is his second revision to the catalog. There are two Sh1 objects (
Sh1-89 and
Sh1-118) which were included in the original 142 member catalogue in 1953 but were not included in the updated 1959 Sh2 catalog because they were discovered not to be emission regions by that time.
The image uses a SHO narrowband palette with RGB stars. This narrowband object, like many nebulae, is much stronger in HII than in OII and SII. My favorite part is the blue bow shock wave of OIII gas to the right of the central bright ionizing star HD 46573. The central region of the nebula contains 4 Lynds Bright Nebulae objects, LBN 970 to 973.
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