The Caldwell Objects

hook as my "train route." Start at Gamma Pegasi
and head 1¾° due north, where you'll encounter
a magnitude-6.6 star. (Large-telescope users
might want to stop here a moment and take a ¾°
detour to the northeast, where they'll find the
11.6-magnitude elliptical galaxy NGC 57.) The
next stop in the hook is the magnitude-5.5
yellow-giant star 87 Pegasi, followed by another
magnitude-6.6 star just 1½° to its west-southwest.
The final stop is less than 1½° to the south, at a
magni-tude-7.2 star; NGC 7814 lies 12' southeast
of
that star and 8' northeast of a wide pair of 9.5magnitude
stars. If your telescope offers a 2° field
of view, the star-hopping described here will be a
cinch. A 3° field of view can take in a nice
triangle made up of Gamma Pegasi, the
magnitude-6.6 star north of it, and the galaxy.
NGC 7814 is an almost exactly edge-on spiral
that belongs to the Pegasus Spur of galaxies,
which includes NGC 7331 (Caldwell 30). Its
recession velocity is 1,047 km per second. If its
estimated distance of 49 million light-years is
correct, NGC 7814's true diameter is 79,000 lightyears.
Most astronomers classify NGC 7814 as an
early-type spiral, though some categorize it as a
lenticular system. In photographs NGC 7814
displays a fly-
43 & 44
ing-saucer-shaped body that tapers in either
direction along its major axis, which is delineated
by a lane of dust. Because of the galaxy's extreme
orientation, its dust lane obscures much of the
light we would otherwise see from its disk. The
galaxy's central bulge dominates the view It has
the mass and luminosity of a modest elliptical
galaxy and appears to be flattened by rotation. By
comparison, the disk contains only a few percent
of the galaxy's total mass. Near-infrared
observations, however, have revealed that the
disk is substantially more significant than visiblelight
images suggest; large amounts of dust and
gas exist at the disk's outskirts, and tightly
wound spiral arms may be present.
A photograph of NGC 7814, taken in 1899 by
James Keeler at Lick Observatory, inspired the
famous astronomer-artist Lucien Rudaux (1874-
1947) to write, "It bears a curious resemblance to
an electric arc between two pointed electrodes."
To me it looks as if several thousand excited
fireflies have taken up temporary quarters on
either side of the galaxy's wire-thin dust lane.
Despite its conflagrant photographic appearance,
the galaxy is not a blazing sight in small
telescopes. Through my 4-inch at 23x I jotted
down this immediate impression: " terribly A
ghostly glow. Light pollution will kill it!" With a
prolonged stare the galaxy displayed a tiny core
with a diffuse halo. At 72x the galaxy reveals
little more definition. A sharp, starlike core lurks
inside the galaxy's distinctive oval glow, though
no hint of dust can be seen near it. The oval's
northeastern periphery looks brighter than its
southwestern counterpart; this may be due to an
unresolved arc of foreground stars close to the
galaxy's northeastern border rather than some
physical asymmetry within the bulge. The arc of
light looks somewhat like a fuzzy white eyebrow
that intensifies to a knot on the oval's
southeastern end,
The Caldwell Objects 175