Fireworks Galaxy, is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 25.2 million light-years. NGC 6946 lies within the Virgo Supercluster.  Ten supernovae have been observed in NGC 6946 in the 20th and early 21st century.  For this reason NGC 6946 has sometimes been referred to as the "Fireworks Galaxy".  This is about ten times the rate observed in our Milky Way galaxy, even though the Milky Way has twice as many stars as NGC 6946.  More supernovae have been seen in NGC 6946 than in any other galaxy.Discovered by William Herschel on 9 September 1798, the diameter is roughly 40,000 light-years, about one-third of the Milky Way's size, and about half the number of stars. It is heavily obscured by interstellar space dust due to its location close to the galactic plane of the Milky Way.  It is very active making new stars and has been classified as a starburst galaxy.

Various unusual celestial objects have been observed within NGC 6946.  This includes the so-called 'Red Ellipse' along one of the northern arms that looks like a super-bubble or very large supernova remnant, and which may have been formed by an open cluster containing massive stars.  Its major axis stretches about 980 light years across. The object lies within the galaxy’s northern spiral arm and is larger than all the observed supernova remnants in NGC 6946. Its name was proposed in a 2016 study that came to the conclusion that it could not in fact be a supernova remnant. The emission-line spectrum indicates photoionization by young, very hot stars, which suggests that the Red Ellipse may be a super-bubble created by a cluster of massive stars located in the northeast portion of the object. However, the cluster itself does not appear large enough to be responsible for the giant super-bubble.

There are also two regions of unusual dark lanes of nebulosity, while within the spiral arms several regions appear devoid of stars and gaseous hydrogen.  

A third peculiar object, discovered in 1967, is now known as "Hodge's Complex". This was once thought to be a young super giant cluster, but in 2017 it was conjectured to be an interacting dwarf galaxy superimposed on NGC 6946.

Ha LRGB

Ha 7 X 660s
L    300 X 37s
R    60 X 120s
G    60 X 120s
B    60 X 150s

Total integration ~10.5 hrs

Taken over three nights 4/30, 5/21, 5/22 2022