About Image:

The Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) is a face-on spiral galaxy located about 25 million light-years away on the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus. It is famous for its high rate of supernovae.

The Companion Cluster (NGC 6939)What it is: While the Fireworks Galaxy is a distant island universe, NGC 6939 is an open star cluster residing locally within our own Milky Way galaxy.Distance & Age: It sits much closer to Earth than the galaxy, at a distance of about 4,000 light-years. The cluster is estimated to be 1 to 1.6 billion years old.

Equipment & Details:

Optics: Orion 8” inch 3.9f Newtonian astrograph with 2" MPCC Mark III coma corrector

Camera: Canon 60D DSLR unmoddified

Mount: Celestron AVX

Guiding: Orion starshoot autoguider 60mm guide scope

Date: July 2023

Location: Clarksdale Missouri

Exposures: Lights-96 iso-1250 with 4-minutes subs, total 6 hours 24 minutes

Processing: Pixlnsight, Photoshop CS5