About NGC 6820
NGC 6820 is a common nebula. It sits in the constellation Vul and shines at apparent magnitude 15.
A nebula: a cloud of interstellar gas and dust, thinner than the best vacuum ever made in a laboratory yet spanning light-years.
Common nebula 17 EP
NGC 6820
RA 295.6167° · Dec 23.0881° · openngc
Score breakdown
· 3 badgesCommon 22 pts → Uncommon
- Nebula +8
- Diffuse nebula +6
- Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) +3
Total score 17
5 more points to reach Uncommon.
Badges
- Nebula · +8
- Diffuse nebula · +6
- Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) · +3
Trivia
What it actually is
- What it actually is. A nebula: a cloud of interstellar gas and dust, thinner than the best vacuum ever made in a laboratory yet spanning light-years.
Find it in the sky
- How to spot it. At magnitude 15 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Vulpecula.
- Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
- Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — that's when to go looking.
Its true colour
- Its true colour. Nebular colours are chemistry made visible — red for hydrogen, teal for oxygen, blue where starlight is merely scattered.
How we came to know it
- The New General Catalogue. Its NGC number comes from J. L. E. Dreyer's 1888 catalogue, itself built on decades of sky sweeps by William Herschel and his sister Caroline.
Properties
- constellation
- Vul
- dso type
- Neb
- mag
- 15
- name
- NGC 6820
- size arcmin
- 0.5
How to see it
Look for NGC 6820 in the constellation Vul. At apparent magnitude 15, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.
Like any astronomical target, NGC 6820 is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why NGC 6820 is a common nebula
NGC 6820 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 3 science badges — Nebula, Diffuse nebula and Faint fuzzy (mag > 13) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.