Lynds 1340 is an isolated star forming molecular cloud, located at a distance of
825 pc from us, and some 160 pc above
the Galactic plane.
I will present the results of a multi-wavelength observational study of L1340,
aimed at determining the specialities of
star formation in this cloud, and integrating Lynds 1340 into the picture of star formation of our 1-kpc Galactic
environment. The structure of the cloud was examined based on a new extinction map, constructed from SDSS data.
More than 200 young stellar objects, born in the cloud, were identified
and studied based on a wide-field slitless grism spectroscopic
survey for H alpha emission stars, low-resolution longslit
spectroscopic observations, high angular resolution near-infrared
imaging data of an embedded cluster, as well as Spitzer and WISE mid-infrared data.
We find that L1340 is giving birth to several mini-clusters of intermediate and low mass stars, whereas its total mass
is some two order of magnitude smaller than that of a typical giant galactic molecular cloud.
Star forming regions similar to L1340 are
probably transient, short-lived structures.
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