• NGC 6939 in Cepheus and NGC 6946 in Cygnus
    • NGC 6939 and NGC 6946 the Fireworks Galaxy
    Annotated image
  • NGC 6946 is a face on galaxy in Cygnus known as the
  • Fireworks Galaxy because so many supernovae occur there.
  • It is 25.2 Mly from us and contains just under
  • 100 billion stars.  NGC 6939 is an open cluster in
  • Cepheus containing 80-100 stars 4000 light years
  • from us.  Notice the IFN in this area of the sky.
  • Hover over the picture for an annotated version
  • Date:  1 October 2021
  • FOV:  cropped to 67.5' × 45'; the angular size of NGC 6946 is about 11.5' × 9.8'
  • Telescope:  Stellarvue SVX102T + SFFX-1 flattener (714mm, f/7)
  • Guiding:  ZWO ASI120MM mini mono guide camera,
  • Stellarvue F050G 50mm guide scope
  • Computer:  ASIair pro Raspberry Pi
  • Mount:  iOptron CEM40
  • Camera:  ZWO ASI071MC Pro Cooled (0°C) Color CMOS with gain 180
  • Filter:  Baader Light Pollution Moonglow filter with IR cut
  • Stacking:  Fifty-seven 200 second frames using Deep Sky Stacker
  • Total Time:  3 hours 10 minutes
  • Processing:  Pixinsight – SPPC, DBE, SPCC, BlurXT, NoiseXT, DynCrop → Linear
  • MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Stars, Sat,
  • StarXT, MStr, GHS, HST, PMath MStr + GHS + HST → Starless,
  • HDR8468PhLm, Sat, PMath ~(~Stars*~Starless) → Blend, scale
  • Location:  Darling Hill Observatory near Vesper, NY