Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6824
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NGC6824, lowenthalm
NGC6824
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NGC6824

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
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NGC6824, lowenthalm
NGC6824
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NGC6824

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

I came across this object during EAA sessions a few years back. It seemed really odd and interesting. And of course adding to the oddness factor: a galaxy in Cygnus?

The thing that fascinates me about this galaxy is the small spiral, about 80,000 light years across, is almost obscured within a bright halo of stars that is around 200,000 light years across. The appearance suggests to me that recently (in the last 200 million years or so) a smaller galaxy dived into the disk of NGC 6824 producing a spray of stars from both galaxies redirected into wide orbits far outside the main disk of NGC 6824. I've been trying to find research papers that look at this galaxy, but have been having trouble finding one that tries to understand the dynamics of this galaxy. 

A few other major objects can be found listed below, including the two larger lenticular galaxies that are roughly the same distance away as NGC 6824. The smaller round distant yellowish elliptical to the upper left of NGC 6824 is actually a rather large anchor elliptical of a dense cluster of smaller galaxies that can be seen swarm around it.

This is one of the first targets I spent a lot of time on after adding a guide camera and OAG to my CGX mount and Edge 1100 system. This definitely helped increase the yield of images from about 65% to well over 90%. I expected to be able to reach this with just the 1100 and the CGX mount, but found that the RA tracking jerks a couple arc seconds (either westward or eastward) once or twice per minute, even with a lot of PEC training. This made 10 second or longer exposures impractical unless I was imaging north of 70 degrees declination. Using a guide camera at a guide rate of twice per second nulled this all out. I'm still pretty grumpy about this.

NGC6824
Type: Galaxy
Spectra: Sab
Size: 1.71 x 1.06 arcmin (78 kly across) [core and disk of galaxy]
Size: 4.36 x 3.02 arcmin (200 kly across) [extended halo]
Magnitude: 13.1(B)
Distance: 158 million light years (z=0.011359)

Brightest small galaxies from left to right above NGC 2924

LEDA 214725 (WISEA J194356.82+560439.0)
Type: Galaxy (bluish lenticular)
Size: 38 x 27 arcsec (33 kly across)
Magnitude: 17.59(V)
Distance: 183 million light years (z=0.013172)
Abs Mag=-16.15

LEDA 2525210 (WISEA J194352.48+560530.1)
Type: Galaxy (brightest elliptical in background cluster)
Size: 35 x 35 arcsec (200 kly across)
Magnitude: 16.48(V)
Distance: 1.168 billion light years (z=0.08749)
Abs Mag=-21.29

LEDA 214726 (WISEA J194348.71+561033.3)
Type: Galaxy (yellow-orange lenticular above HD 239191)
Size: 41 x 13 arcsec (40 kly across)
Magnitude: 17.20(V)
Distance: 200 million light years (z=0.01442)
Abs Mag=-16.74

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NGC6824, lowenthalm

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