NGC 6946, sometimes called Fireworks Galaxy, is a beautiful spiral galaxy located between constellations Cepheus and Cygnus. It is approximately 22.5 million light-years away from Earth and it’s a part of Virgo Supercluster of galaxies. The name didn’t get from the shape, but due to frequent explosions of supernovae.
Next to the galaxy is located NGC6939 Ghost Bush Cluster, which is a part of our own Galaxy, therefore the distance from earth is “only” 4000 light-years.
The picture is the last one from the day. I slewed to target, switched on auto guiding and went to sleep. Therefore the picture is an integration of 73 photos, each 5 minutes long, i.e. 6 hours of total time. This is probably the picture with the longest integration time from Milos.
Technical details:
| Telescope | Newton 150/600 mm |
| Aperture | 150 mm |
| Focal length | 660 mm |
| Mount | iOptron CEM25P |
| Autoguiding | QHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM |
| Camera | ZWO 071 Pro @-10C |
| Corrector | Explore Scientific HR coma corrector |
| Filters | Astronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter |
| Exposure | 73x300s, Gain 134, bin 1x1, |
| Date | 2018-09-10 |