Star formation in the “Gulf of Mexico”

摘要

We present an optical/infrared study of the dense molecular cloud, L935, dubbed “The Gulf of Mexico”, which separates the North America and the Pelican nebulae, and we demonstrate that this area is a very active star forming region. A wide-field imaging study with interference filters has revealed 35 new Herbig-Haro objects in the Gulf of Mexico. A grism survey has identified 41 Hα emission-line stars, 30 of them new. A small cluster of partly embedded pre-main sequence stars is located around the known LkHα 185-189 group of stars, which includes the recently erupting FUor HBC?722.