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The influence of the demountable Penning ion source electrodes geometry on the discharge characteristics and extracted ion current is investigated. The extracted currents, ignition potentials and the operational pressure ranges are compared at different anode heights and its arrangement relative to the discharge cell. The use of ring and mesh anodes has allowed to visualize the discharge burning areas and their structure versus the pressure, anode potential and cell geometry. Some PIC simulations of Penning discharge are made in the Vorpal code. The good correspondence between the simulated electron density and plasma glow areas on the photos is shown. The other one-particle simulation has shown that the magnetic field nonuniformity significantly affects the ignition and combustion discharge potentials.