NGC 6814 - Galaxy
NGC 6814 is with a brightness of 11.3mag one of the few bright galaxies in the constellation "Aquila" and is located at the border to Sagittarius.
The galaxy was discovered in 1788 by F.W. Herschel and later added to the NGC- Catalog.
The barred spiral of Hubble Type "SBbc" has a diameter of 85,000 light years and has an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Furthermore it belongs
to the group of Seyfert galaxies, in whose spectrum bright emission lines of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen and oxygen can be found. The reason for
this are fast rotating gas masses with velocities of sometimes more than 10.000 km/s, which flow into a black hole. This also results in the
emission of X-rays, which have also been detected in NGC 6814. The mass of the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the center is 18 million
solar masses.
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In a 20" telescope, the first thing you notice is the very starry surrounding. This is of course no surprise, since NGC 6814 is located in the middle
of the summer Milky Way. The galaxy itself is bright and roundish, but shows no structures at low magnifications.
At 270x the first details appear. The core area appears quite bright and is surrounded by an extended halo. The two brightest spiral arms are very
hard to see and you will need some patience and a really dark sky to see the arms with indirect vision peeling out of the galaxy halo with low
contrast. The northern arm appears more distinct than the southern one.
