I'm honestly quite happy with this image.
I started to realize shooting galaxies (or broadband in general) is my favourite thing to do, along with rich milky way star fields.
And then paired with a lot of faint dust, this target really hit the nail on the head!
Sitting in-between the constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus the Fireworks Galaxy is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy approximately 25.2 million light-years away from us, and is about one-third the size of our own Milky Way (diameter of 40.000 light-years compared to 105.700 light-years).
Due to its apparent position being close to the galactic plane, we have to peek through a heavy amount of interstellar matter from our own galaxy to get a look at NGC 6946. This can be seen by all the milky way dust and stars that are speckled all over the image.
The very apparent, red-glowing regions within the galaxy are caused by large amounts of star formation, for which it has been classified as an "active starburst galaxy". Starburst galaxies undergo an exceptionally high rate of star formation that can be up to a factor of 33 times greater than the rate of our own Milky Way. Paired with a staggering 10 observed supernovae in the 20th and early 21st century alone, it has very well earned the nickname of the "Fireworks Galaxy".
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