SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Daniel Stern
Location of Photo:
Rio Hurtado, Chile
Date/Time of photo:
May 2025
Equipment:
CDK-17, Moravian C5-100
Description:
Barnard’s Galaxy, also known as NGC 6822, IC 4895, and Caldwell 57, is a small galaxy about 1.6 million light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered in 1884 by Edward E. Barnard, who described it as a faint, fuzzy patch—typical of how many distant galaxies were misclassified back then as just “nebulae.” That changed in 1925, when Edwin Hubble studied it using the powerful 100-inch Hooker Telescope. He was able to resolve individual Cepheid variable stars and estimate its distance. While his estimate—around 700,000 light-years—was off by today’s standards, it clearly showed that NGC 6822 lies outside the Milky Way. This made it the first known irregular galaxy proven to be extragalactic.
