The Propeller Nebula (Simeis 57) is part of a vast and rich HII-region in Cygnus, known as Cygnus X Complex.
It was catalogued first in the early 1950s by astronomers at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory at Simeiz, Ukraine, as the 57th object in a catalogue containing 306 HII regions.

The Propeller Nebula is often incorrectly referred as DWB 111, but DWB 111 identifies only the southern (lower) arm, while the northern one is DWB 119.
The DWB catalog, developed by H. R. Dickel, H. Wendker and J. H. Bieritz in 1969, cataloging 193 distinct objects as part of their study of Hα-emission nebula in the Cygnus X region of the sky.
The Propeller Nebula is probably about 5,500 light-years away from Earth.