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Description
We present here identification and characterization of the young stellar population associated with an active star-forming site Sh2-242. We used our own new optical imaging and spectroscopic observational data, as well as several archival catalogs, e.g., Pan-STARRS-1, Gaia-DR2, Isaac Newton Telescope Photometric H-Alpha Survey (IPHAS), Wide-field InfraRed Camera, 2MASS, and Spitzer. Slit spectroscopic results confirm the classification of the main ionizing source BD+26980 as an early-type star of spectral type B0.5V. The spectrophotometric distance of the star is estimated as 2.08{+/-}0.24kpc, which confirms the source as a member of the cluster. An extinction map covering a large area (diameter ~50') is generated with H and K photometry toward the region. From the map, three distinct locations of peak extinction complexes (A_V_~7-17mag) are identified for the very first time. Using the infrared color excess, a total of 33 Class I and 137 Class II young objects are classified within the region. The IPHAS photometry reveals classification of 36 H{alpha} emitting sources, which might be class II objects. Among 36 H{alpha} emitting sources, 5 are already identified using infrared excess emission. In total, 201 young objects are classified toward S242 from this study. The membership status of the young sources is further windowed with the inclusion of parallax from the Gaia DR2 catalog. Using the optical and infrared color-magnitude diagrams, the young stellar objects are characterized with an average age of ~1Myr and masses in the range 0.1-3.0M_{sun}_.
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