Looking at a Bit of History

NGC 6822
Barnard’s Dwarf Galaxy
Sagittarius
24/07/09
Ilford NSW Australia
Field 27′
Magnification 218x
56cm f5 dobsonian telescope
Sky Quality Meter Reading 21:46

Black Canford paper
White pastel
White pen
Soft white pencil
Blending stump

NGC 6822 or “Barnard’s Dwarf Galaxy” is not a particularly difficult object from a dark sky site, but it is rather diffuse, and can suffer visually from poor sky conditions.
I always find medium to low magnification the best when observing this galaxy as it contrasts nicely with the numerous field stars.

I noticed there had been one or two entries in previous years on ASOD dealing with NGC 6822, so I thought I might add my own just for another perspective on this
fascinating object.

As you can probably notice just to the right of center in the sketch and about 6′ apart are two of the brighter H-II regions of this object.

A local group member NGC 6822 is quite famous as being the basis for Edwin Hubble’s seminal paper- NGC 6822 A Remote Stellar System (Hubble 1925) wherein he
was able to identify 15 variable stars, the majority of which were Cepheid’s.
He was then able to determine the distance to NGC 6822 with great accuracy (over 700 000 ly).

This virtually concluded the “Great Debate” of 1920 between Shapely and Curtis over the scale of the Universe and the nature of “Spiral Nebulae”.

So if you get a chance to observe NGC 6822 you are looking at a bit of history in more ways than one.

Scott Mellis