The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster (Tom Wildoner)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: Fireworks Galaxy · HD195688 · HD196085 · NGC 6939 · NGC 6946

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The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster

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The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster

NGC 6946, sometimes referred to as the Fireworks Galaxy, is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 25.2 million light-years. NGC 6939 is an open cluster and is located 4,000 light-years from our solar system. This is a two panel mosaic image, each panel was 81 minutes of exposure time.

NGC 6946 also appears in Arps Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as ARP 29. It was placed in the “Peculiar Galaxy” category since it has one spiral arm that is larger than the others.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, two panel, each panel 81x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 26, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

The refractors!

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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Star trails
Northern lights
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Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8378442
PixInsight job	D07127RJ7JUAFD30SPB241E3FDF0J0TG
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	20h33m16s.677
RA (top/left)	20h28m06s.660
RA (top/right)	20h29m22s.436
RA (bottom/right)	20h38m12s.680
RA (bottom/left)	20h37m23s.437

Dec (center)	+60°24′18″.57
Dec (top/left)	+61°07′11″.40
Dec (top/right)	+59°35′23″.37
Dec (bottom/right)	+59°40′59″.20
Dec (bottom/left)	+61°12′47″.66

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Contribution Index (beta):

The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster

The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster

The Fireworks Galaxy and an Open Cluster

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