NGC 6946

Click on image for larger version.


 NGC 6946 is both a spectacular and dim galaxy in Cepheus. At a distance of 10 million light years, this galaxy is one of about a dozen nearby neighbors to the Milky Way. Like M83, this galaxy has had an enormous number of supernovae explosions in the past 60 years. If we could watch this galaxy with years passing as seconds- every moment or two we would see a star blow up!

Equipment

20in RC Optical Systems telescope Operating at f/5.5
Paramount ME Robotic Telescope Mount
SBIG ST10XME CCD camera with color filter wheel

L R G B color production was used to create this f/8.4 image.

Luminance = 120 minutes binned 1x1
 Red = 20 minutes binned 1x1
 Green =20 minutes binned 1x1
 Blue = 20 minutes binned 1x1
  • Luminance data take on two different nights. (one night under the auspices of Flynn Haase)
  • One iteration of CCDsharp was applied to these images.
  • Digital Development (DDP) via Maxim/DL was also used in order to display the the very dim and very bright details of the image simultaneously.

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    Minimum credit line: Fred Calvert/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF

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    Updated: 06/22/2004