NGC 6946 - The Fireworks Galaxy - September 2019 Version
Date: September 17, 2019
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0010
NGC 6946 as captured by my William Optics 132mm Platform in September of 2019 (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
NGC 6946, also known as the Fireworks Galaxy. This galaxy is located 25.2 million light-years away between the constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus.
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of NGC 6946 was created using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts.
The Location in the Sky
About the Project
This was my longest exposure yet- consisting of 45 frames of 3 minutes each - for a total of 135 minutes of exposure. Really happy with the detail and the color I was able to pull out.
Updated Comments 08-02-21 (as I publish this into the website):
This early image has some spiral detail, but of course, this image is still soft in focus, the color is off, and blacks are clipped - and would somebody please tell 2019-Me to stop using the star diffraction tool on the bright stars?
More Information
Capture Details
Light frames
45 x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C
Total integration time: 2.25 hours
Cal Frames
not recorded
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, and much swearing…..
I was still learning to use the main rig, when I soon made my first modification. I was doing the Polar Alignment the old fashioned way - using an illuminated polar scope. This caused me to kneel down on the driveway and look up through the polar axis. This was killing my knees, my back and my neck! I hated it and I was sure I was not getting very good alignments with it…..