NGC 6503 is a dwarf spiral galaxy in Draco that figuratively lies on a road less travelled by amateur astronomers, with for example fewer than 130 Astrobin posts to date, while in the visual lane,
Stephen O'Meara included it in his compilation of
"Hidden Treasures". O'Meara dubbed it the "Lost in Space Galaxy", to dramatize the fact that it is on the edge of the
Local Void, a huge region of relatively empty space next to the
Local Group of galaxies, estimated to be between about 150- and 900-million light years across.
I found NGC 6503 to be a surprisingly rewarding target, given the scant attention that it has received, with complex fragmentary spiral arms that are rich in texture and colour, and that have a relatively high surface brightness [#]. I first came across it as a potential target while flipping through the pages of the book
"1,001 Celestial Wonders to See Before You Die", a very useful resource that is also kind of sobering (so much to see, so little time!).
NGC 6503 is at a distance of about 17 million-light years, and is relatively large as
dwarf spirals go, with a diameter of about 35,000 light years.
This image spans about 29'x21', at a plate scale of about 0.47"/pixel, and is the result of 20+ hours of integration, split roughly equally between luminance and RGB colour, and acquired over the course of ten nights from late June through the latter half of July. An additional 9 hours of exposures were rejected based on seeing and sky-background cuts.
[#] The galaxy's Hubble classification is SA(s)cd, which indicates that it has a substantial portion of its luminosity in the arms, and a fainter bulge.
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