This wide-field image beautifully frames three distinct astronomical objects in the constellation Cepheus. Near the center-right lies the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946), a face-on spiral galaxy located about 22 million light-years away and known for its frequent supernova activity, ten have been recorded there in just the past century. Just above it, to the right, sparkles the open star cluster NGC 6939, a dense collection of young stars roughly 3,800 light-years from Earth.

On the left side of the image, the dark, snake-like shape of the Seahorse Nebula (LDN 1251) winds through the faint glow of the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN), a tenuous mix of dust and gas reflecting starlight from our galaxy. The scene is a compelling blend of deep-sky structure and scale, bridging the contrast between nearby galactic cirrus and distant stellar metropolises.

Image Description and Details : 273×180″(13h 39′) (gain: 120.00) -15°C bin 1×1Darks:30Flats:30Flat Darks:30TS-Optics PHOTON 200mm/8" f/5 Newtonian ZWO ASI294MC ProSky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Optolong UV/IR cut 2"Baader 2" MPCC Mark III Newton Coma Corrector ZWO ASIAIR PlusSVBony SV106 50mm Guide ScopeZWO ASI120MM MiniBortel 4Queidersbach/Germany
Copyright: Bryan Krafczick

Image Description and Details :

This is an image of NGC 6946, also known as the Fireworks Galaxy. It is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy about 25 million light years away near the boundary of the constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. It spans about 40,000 light years in diameter, which is about one third the size of the Milky Way. It is classified as a starburst galaxy which means there is a lot of star forming regions as can be seen in the magenta regions in the image.

Telescope: Planewave CDK-17
Camera: FLI PL16803
Mount: Paramount ME
Luminance: 27x20 minutes (binned 1x1)
Red: 16x15 minutes (binned 1x1)
Green: 16x15 minutes (binned 1x1)
Blue: 16x15 minutes (binned 1x1)


Copyright: Bernard Miller

I have had this on my Hard drive for some time now but was never happy with the outcome of the processing so now we are in lockdown it seemed a good time for a revisit. I spent the whole day and started from the beginning I'm now very happy with how it turned out.

Lum 19x900Secs
Red 15x900Secs
Green 11x900Secs
Blue 14x900Secs
Ha 22x1800Secs

22 hours 5 mins in total.

Equipment used:
Telescope: Tec 140 F7
Camera: Xpress Trius SX-694 Pro Mono Cooled to -10C
Guiding: OAG
Filters: Astronomik L
Mount: iOptron CEM60 "Standard" GOTO Centre Balanced Equatorial Mount
Image Acquisition: Voyager
Observatory control: Lunatico Dragonfly
Stacking and Calibrating: Pixinsight
Processing: Pixinsight 1.8

Copyright: David Wills