NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog (Lilith Gaither)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: NGC 6951 · NGC 6952

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NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog

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NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog

A Marvelous field in the northern constellation of Cepheus, centered on type 2 Seyfert galaxy NGC 6951. The galaxy lies around 70 million light years from us in the direction of some faint Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN).

The galaxy, listed as both NGC 6951 and 6952, is an intermediate barred spiral of type SAB(rs)bc around 100,000 light years across (3'.9 x 3'.2 in apparent angular diameter). It has an active nucleus which appears to be in a transitional state between Seyfert and very-high-excitation LINER with strong NII and SII emissions. The activity is likely caused by accretions from a supermassive black hole of 14 million M☉ at the center.

The galaxy features a large stellar bar with dust lanes running through it connecting a circumnuclear ring at its north and south points. The bar channels gas inwards toward the center ring, and may have played a part in its formation. Four supernovae have been observed in this galaxy since 1999.

The structures of "mist" or "fog" are regions of IFN, a kind of extragalactic cirrus cloud. IFN are similar to other nebulae in the sky, but lie outside the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. They are illuminated not by a single source of light, but rather by the combined (integrated) stellar flux of all the stars in the galaxy combined.

This object was a fun capture over several nights. My seeing has been exceptional & the processing on this one was rather simple and light, for a change. Color was a bit of a pain, but what's new Lol!

Cheers & CS to all,

Lilith

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2861974
PixInsight job	6D5JMQLMXMP8Q0ODI3XRWA5UZYP9R2MH
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	20h37m12s.759
RA (top/left)	20h40m05s.954
RA (top/right)	20h34m24s.437
RA (bottom/right)	20h34m21s.993
RA (bottom/left)	20h39m58s.561

Dec (center)	+66°06′16″.60
Dec (top/left)	+66°17′12″.40
Dec (top/right)	+66°17′59″.99
Dec (bottom/right)	+65°55′07″.61
Dec (bottom/left)	+65°54′22″.84

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NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog

NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog

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NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog

NGC 6951: Galaxy Within the Cosmic Fog

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