You are here

Scorpius OB1 - east

Submitted by Kevin Jardine on 24 June, 2007 - 18:53


The Scorpius OB1 - east and adjacent Ara OB1A, Scorpius OB1 - west and Eagle/Omega regions are massive molecular cloud and star formation areas located immediately across a large gap inwards from the Orion Arc, and are usually described as being part of the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way.

The eastern portion of Scorpius OB1 is dominated by the nebula Sh 2-12 (also called RCW 132, W23 or Gum 67), which at a distance of only 985 parsecs is probably the closest major Sagittarius molecular cloud to our solar system. Detailed hydrogen-alpha images reveal that Sh-12 appears as a fainter, ghostly version of the Rosette nebula. Sh 2-12 is ionised by the binary O-star (O7V + O7V) HD 159176, which lies in the star cluster NGC 6383 in the direction of Scorpius OB1.

In a similar direction, but a bit further away at about 1700 parsecs are the famous War and Peace (Sh 2-11) and Cat's Paw (Sh 2-8) nebulae.

RCW 117
RCW 125
RCW 123
RCW 122
Sh 2-4
RCW 128
RCW 116
RCW 115
RCW 119
RCW 133
RCW 132
RCW 118
RCW 126
Sh 2-11
Sh 2-10
Sh 2-6
Sh 2-14
Sh 2-3
Sh 2-8
Sh 2-5
RCW 114