NGC 6689 — SABc in Draco
SABc in Draco, 3.3 arcminutes across, its light 24 million years old. Measured by HyperLEDA, photographed by Pan-STARRS1. Recorded once.
About NGC 6689
NGC 6689 is a nearby edge-on spiral in Draco, also catalogued as NGC 6690.
What you are looking at
NGC 6689 is a late-type spiral: a small central bulge and open, loosely wound arms full of young stars and star-forming gas. A weak bar of stars crosses its centre. Its disc is steeply tilted, about 77° from face-on, so it appears as a long oval. From edge to edge its visible disc spans about 23,000 light-years (taking its redshift distance, which for a galaxy this near is approximate), about a quarter the width of the Milky Way.
What astronomers have recorded
It is cited in 128 scientific papers indexed by SIMBAD, and recorded there under 20 different catalogue designations.
When this light set out
Its light has been travelling for about 24 million years. When it left, Antarctica had begun to freeze. The galaxy is moving away from us at about 489 km/s (1.1 million mph), carried by the expansion of the universe. For a galaxy this close, its own motion through space is a large share of that speed, so the distance worked out from it is approximate; distances measured from individual stars in it can differ.
Finding it in the sky
In the sky, NGC 6689 sits within the constellation Draco. From most of the United States it never sets: it circles the north celestial pole all year, and stands highest on summer evenings, around August.
By apparent size it is number 421 of the 12,657 galaxies on the Galaxy Origins register.
Measurements
| Catalogue | PGC 62077 |
|---|---|
| Morphological type | SABc |
| Angular diameter | 3.29′ |
| Right ascension | 18h34m50.3s |
| Declination | +70°31′25.9″ |
| Constellation | Draco |
| Inclination | 77.1° |
| Light travel time | 24 million years |
| Bar | yes, from the catalogue |
Check every figure above in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
What is sold
A print of this galaxy and the record of the calculation, once. When it sells it leaves the register and is not offered again. We assign no names and no ownership — nobody can sell you those.
At 3.3 arcminutes this is a Exceptional galaxy, which is the tier where a real photograph shows clear structure and dust lanes. The tier comes from the measured diameter, not from a price list.
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