From GalaxyMap:
Located near in the sky to the Orion nebula, Sh 2-279 is often called the Running Man nebula and is a combination of a reflection nebula and an HII region. Sharpless says that this nebula is ionised by the B3 star HD 37018 (42 Orionis). (SIMBAD gives a hotter B1 V class.) Kharchenko places this star in the star cluster NGC 1977. A 1977 paper agrees that HD 37018 ionises Sh 2-279, and adds that Sh 2-279 is an HII region that includes the star clusters NGC 1973, NGC 1975 and NGC 1977. (SIMBAD identifies these objects as "bright nebula" rather than star clusters.)
GENERAL NOTE ON SHARPLESS2 OBJECTS>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I have been on a project for several years now to image all the Sharpless2 Objects that I can see from my location near San Francisco. I chose these because they are visible in light polluted areas. These objects generally represent left over Hydrogen along the edge of the Milky Way that has gotten molded into interesting shapes.
There are 313 Sh2 objects and those below 70 and above 283 are generally too low on the horizon for me to image... this leaves me 213 that are feasible... and I have imaged all of these but 17. 13 of these are too big for my system. So 1 to go: (262).
Many were taken with my old Tak 180 ED, which had a wide field of view, but was replaced with my Stellarvue 130, which is more narrow field.
This is my collection:
Sharpless2Please note there is also a Sharpless2 Group with now more than 1000 examples.
Hope you enjoy these obscure but interesting objects...
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