Key facts
- Constellation
- Draco
- Right ascension
- 17 49 26.4207
- Declination
- +70 ° 08 ′ 39.587 ″
- Heliocentric radial velocity
- 28 km/s
- Distance
- 20.9 ± 2.2 Mly (6.40 ± 0.66 Mpc )
- Type
- SAB:(s)bc
- Apparent size v
- 7.1 ′ × 2.4 ′
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- low-ionization nuclear emission-line region
- Constellation
- Draco
- Distance from Earth
- 6.1
- Image
- NGC 6503 (2015-06-10).jpg
Show 12 more facts
- located in/on physical feature
- Local Void
- Commons category
- NGC 6503
- catalog code
- Gaia DR2 1638134375333028096
- time of discovery or invention
- 1854-07-22
- discoverer or inventor
- Arthur Auwers
- apparent magnitude
- 7.296
- galaxy morphological type
- SA(s)cd
- redshift
- 0.000147
- right ascension
- 267.36008613210690
- declination
- 70.14432982516100
- radial velocity
- 44
- epoch
- J2000.0
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
NGC 6503 is a field dwarf spiral galaxy in the northern constellation of Draco. It was discovered by German astronomer Arthur von Auwers on July 22, 1854. The galaxy has an angular size of 7.1′ × 2.4′ and an apparent visual magnitude of 10.2. It is located at the distance of 18 million light years away from the Milky Way galaxy. NGC 6503 may form the remote tip of a long chain of galaxies that extends out into the Local Void, forming a galaxy filament spanning 26 million light-years (8 Mpc).
The galactic plane of this galaxy is inclined at an angle of 78°±3° to the plane of the sky, with the major axis of its oval profile being aligned along a position angle of 121°. The morphological classification of NGC 6503 is SAB:(s)bc. This indicates a barred spiral galaxy (SAB:) with no inner ring structure (s) and moderately wound spiral arms (bc). However, the ':' notation indicates some uncertainty about the classification. Older works gave it a class of SA(s)bc; i.e. no bar.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “NGC 6503” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.