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 , IPHAS , WIRCam , 2MASS , and Spitzer .
Slit spectroscopic results confirm the classification of the main ionizing source BD+26 980 as an early-type star of spectral type B0.5 V. The spectrophotometric distance of the star is estimated as 2.08 \pm 0.24 kpc , which confirms the source as a member of the cluster .
An extinction map covering a large area ( diameter \sim 50 \arcmin ) is generated with H and K photometry toward the region .
From the map , three distinct locations of peak extinction complexes ( A _ { V } \simeq 7–17 mag ) 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 \sim 1 Myr and the masses in the range 0.1–3.0 M _ { \sun } .
The census of the stellar content within the region is discussed using combined photometric and spectroscopic data .