[1] Studies in 1988 found that the bright star illuminating the nebula was 8th magnitude HD 53623 / HIP 34178 with spectral class B1II/III.

[4][1] Later in 2004 it was shown that there was embedded a cold but massive Young Stellar Object or YSO within Sh 2-297 near the edge of one of the dark rifts.

[5] This object has been observed in the far-infrared, but it is so deeply embedded in an interstellar cloud that it is undetectable in shorter wavelength observations such as the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), leading it to be originally named "Unidentified young stellar object 1" or UYSO-1.

[5][1] Some 96 other YSOs have been discovered to be part of Sh-297, having a mean age of one million years and range in masses between 0.3 M☉ and 2.0 M☉.

This region was catalogued as part of the major clustering of reflection nebula as CMa R1 by van den Bergh in 1966.