We present the results of BV ( RI ) _ { KC } CCD photometry down to V = 21 mag in the region of NGC 6994 .
To our knowledge , no photometry has previously been reported for this object and we find evidences that it is a poor and sparse old open cluster , with a minimum angular diameter of 9 arcmin , i.e .
larger than the 3 arcmin originally assigned to it .

We obtain a color excess E _ { B - V } = 0.07 \pm 0.02 mag by means of the BVI _ { C } technique .
Based on the theoretical isochrones from [ VandenBerg ( 1985 ) ] that are in better agreement with our data , we estimate for this cluster a distance from the Sun of 620 pc ( V _ { 0 } - M _ { V } = 9 ~ { } \pm~ { } 0.25 mag ) and an age lying within the range of 2 – 3 Gyr , adopting solar metallicity .
Thus , the corresponding cluster ’ s Galactocentric distance is 8.1 kpc and is placed at about 350 pc below the Galactic plane .
According to this results , NGC 6994 belongs to the old open cluster population located in the outer disk and at large distances from the Galactic plane , and must have suffered significant individual dynamical evolution , resulting in mass segregation and evaporation of low mass stars .