NGC 6946
Notes:
The Fireworks galaxy in Cephus is fairly obscured being behind the plane of the Milky Way, and dimmed by the dust in our galaxy. There is a lot of activity in the arms of this galaxy, new star formation, and a lot of supernovas have been observed in this galaxy. It is fairly close about about 10 million light years away. All of the larger stars you see are stars in the Milky Way, much closer to us than the galaxy itself. Galaxies are made of billions of stars, they are so far away in this picture, we just see the collective light from the stars, not the individual stars themselves.
Telescope:
C11
Mount:
MI-250
Camera:
SBIG ST-10XME
Filters:
Astrodon LRGB
Dates:
July 1-3, 2006
Exposure:
LRGB: L=(1×1) 16x6min, RGB=8x5min (2×2) each for 216 minutes total at -20C