Barnard’s Galaxy (NGC 6822, Caldwell 57)
NGC 6822 in Sagittarius is arguably the most celebrated and important deep-sky discovery made by Edward Emerson Barnard in 1884. This island of stars with an apparent diameter of 15 arc min lies about 1.5 million light-years away and is a member of the Local Group like the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Pinwheel Galaxy (M33).
Like the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, NGC 6822 seems to be without symmetry and is classified as an irregular. At one end of a prominent bar a few clouds of glowing gas can be seen; at the other, bright bluish stars are scattered out into what appears to be the first signs of a straggling spiral arm.
[description from O’Meara and Australian Astronomical Observatory]
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