NGC6946
UGC11597
Arp 29

Cygnus

Galaxy

RA 20 37 52
DEC 60 09 15

Mag: 8.8

Size: 11.6' x 9.8'

Class: SAB(rs)cd

What a better way to pay tribute to Americas independence this week than to discuss our own deepsky fireworks! NGC 6946 or the Fireworks Galaxy, is a beautiful face-on spiral located in Cygnus near the border of Cepheus. Discovered on September 9th 1798 by William Herschel, 6946 makes its fame for not only being a wonderfully visual deep sky object in a telescope, but it claims title as being the most active galaxy as far as supernovae observed. Since 1917, we have observed 9 supernovae within NGC6946, with the most recent being in 2008 by UK amateur Ron Arbour.

Visually, a relatively close neighbor at only 18Mly, NGC6946 makes for a marvelous object. Between its spiral arms, its numerous challenging HII knots brought to our attention by our own Steve Gottlieb in his July 2013 issue of Sky & Telescope to its beautiful counterpart NGC 6939, an Open Cluster just over the border in Cepheus, these objects offer a wonderful sight in all sizes of telescopes. Lower power wide field views offer a stunning "Two-Fer" in the eyepiece, two differing objects visible in the same FOV.

Lastly, DSF had a short thread in 2013 touching upon those HII regions Steve mentions in his S&T article. You can find that thread here: http://www.deepskyforum.com/showthre...highlight=6946

For even further information, Universe Today has a great article located here: http://www.universetoday.com/17824/t...dietmar-hager/

So next time you're out under some dark summer skies, be sure to swing north and find some fireworks in NGC6946. Just how many knots can you see?

Give it a go and let us know!

NGC6946-Subaru-GendlerL.jpg