Herbig–Haro flows around the BBWo 192E (GM 1–23) nebula

Abstract

ABSTRACT Looking for evidence of recent star formation, we have studied a small comet-shaped reflection nebula, known as BBWo 192E (GM 1–23), which is located in the dark cloud SL 4 in the Vela Molecular Ridge cloud C, and a young infrared cluster embedded into the nebula. We obtained the images of BBWo 192E in Hα and [S ii] lines and in a Sloan Digital Sky Survey i ′ filter with the Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in order to discover new Herbig–Haro (HH) flows. We used the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer to search for additional member stars of the cluster. We also studied the proper motions and parallaxes of the cluster members using GAIA Data Release 2. Five new groups containing at least nine HH objects, tracing several distinct outflows, were revealed. A previously unreported reflection nebula and a number of probable outflow sources were found in the infrared range. The proper motions allowed us to select eight probable member stars in the visual range. Their parallaxes correspond to a mean distance 800 ± 100 pc for this cluster. The bolometric luminosities of the brightest cluster members are 1010 L⊙ (IRAS 08513−4201, the strong source in the centre of the cluster) and 2–6 L⊙ for the five other stars. The existence of optical HH flows around the infrared cluster of young stellar objects suggests that star formation in this cloud is ongoing around the more massive Herbig Ae/Be star. Considering its morphology and other features, this star-forming region is similar to the zone of star formation near CPM 19.