Here’s my latest image of a region in Cepheus that contains a dark nebula, distant galaxy, and an open cluster. Taken over two nights in July of this year, it took a while to get to process.
Description:
This region in the corner of the constellation Cepheus contains a variety of interesting objects. The distant galaxy, NGC6946, is a face-on spiral galaxy and lies some 25 million light years away. It’s dubbed the Fireworks Galaxy due to the high count of observed supernovae, the last of which was in 2017. Ten have been observed since 1917. The open cluster to the lower left of the Fireworks galaxy is NGC6939, and is around 4000 light years distant and thought to be over 2 billion years old. The Seahorse Nebula to the right is a dark molecular nebula that spans 1 degree in the sky.
Details:
Scope: Astro-Physics 92mm Stowaway @f/5.3
Reducer: Astro-Physics 0.8x telecompressor
Camera: ASI6200MM Pro
Guide Camera: ASI174MM Mini
Mount: Mach1 GTO
L: 48x5min
RGB: 37x5min total
Software: Voyager, PHD2, APCC, Pixinsight
7.1 hrs total exposure
