NGC 6902 – “The Spinner”

NGC 6902 is an unbarred spiral galaxy located in the southern part of the constellation Sagittarius. This galaxy is rarely Photographed. The galaxy lies approximately 133 million light years away and was discovered by John Herschel. What an interesting vibrant galaxy with its many spiral arms, looks as if it’s spinning itself apart. There is very little I could find about this galaxy anywhere.

This galaxy has very heavy concentrations of dust in the central portion, the heavily interwoven arms have numerous star forming regions. The arms stretch quite far from the central portion of the galaxy and seemingly fade into a blue haze. Several other galaxies can be seen scattered across the field of view, including the smaller face-on spiral NGC 6902B to the upper left.

And far in the background countless distant galaxy groupings can be seen as small fuzzy dots throughout the image.

Image Processing: Mark Hanson

Data: Mazlin, Forman, Parker, Hanson

6/12-6/17 2023 LRGB 705,360,360,360 min 30 Hours total

Telescope1: 24" Planewave CDK f6.5 and L600 Mount, Camera SBIG 16803 Location: SWOS, El Sauce Chile

Enjoy,

Mark