Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  Fireworks Galaxy  ·  NGC 6939  ·  NGC 6946
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars, Marcel Noordman
NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars, Marcel Noordman
NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Description

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 or 7.72 megaparsecs, similar to the distance of M101 (NGC 5457) in the constellation Ursa Major. Both were once considered to be part of the Local Group, but are now known to be among the dozen bright spiral galaxies near the Milky Way but beyond the confines of the Local Group. NGC 6946 lies within the Virgo Supercluster.

Personal Note

I shot this with my 71 mm refractor from my backyard between the clouds in a Bortle 9 location. So no high expectations... I like the colourful stars in this frame and the combination of the galaxy with the open cluster. Might want to shoot this with my larger refractor one day.

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 6946 & 6939 Firework galaxy and stars, Marcel Noordman