NGC 6814 has an extremely bright nucleus and is a type 1.5 Seyfert galaxy.

The ultraviolet and optical emission also varies, although more smoothly, with time lag of two days.

The cause of the lag and the smoothing of light curves is considered to be the reprocessing of the X-rays in the accretion disk.

[3] The cause of the active galactic nucleus is suspected to be a supermassive black hole with a mass about 18 million times that of the Sun.

[4] Many regions of ionised gas are studded along the dusty spiral arms.