Lacerta OB1 region

The Lacerta OB1 region is a collection of faint nebular filaments and young, hot stars grouped into an OB association, known as Lacerta OB1; the system is named after the constellation in which it is visible, that of Lacerta.

With a distance of just 370 parsecs (1,200 light-years), Lacerta OB1 appears as one of the closest OB associations to the Solar System, along with the local associations Scorpius–Centaurus, Perseus OB3, and Vela OB2; these, along with others at slightly greater distances, form the Gould Belt, a bright ring of young, massive stars developing along an immense expanding ring of gas known as the Lindblad Ring.

Lacerta OB1 is an excellent example of a young, relatively compact stellar association where star formation processes are nearing complete exhaustion; its proximity and position far from the galactic plane and its sources of disturbance due to the overlap of multiple structures along the same line of sight make it an easily studied research field.