NGC 6907 And The Strange Case of NGC 6908
Capricornus
20 25 06
-24 48 33
Type SB Galaxy
Mag 11.9
NGC 6907 is a beautiful one armed SB galaxy. I remember one night many years ago I was sweeping for Comets with my old 25" F/5 and I swept up this big and bright galaxy, it was the high light of the session and I often return to it. At MAG 11.9 this galaxy looks great in most scopes.
In 2007 Barry Madore of Carnegie observatories did near infrared imaging of the bright region in the north arm(NGC 6908) that was thought for 150 years to be a H II or a surface brighting in the arm. Madore thought that it might be a galaxy interacting with NGC 6907 and as it turned out he was right. NGC 6908 is a lenticular S0 galaxy at nearly the same velocity of NGC 6907 and is in a deep interaction with it. It is indeed strange that NGC 6908 was thought to part of NGC 6907 for 150 years and it took the advancement in imaging and modern telescopes to show that it is a separate galaxy.
Be sure to check out this beautiful interaction the next time you are under Dark Skies that took 150 years to figure out and
"GIVE IT A GO AND LET US KNOW"
GOOD LUCK AND GREAT VIEWING!
NGC6907.jpg
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