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Credit & Copyright: Alberto Pisabarro
Explanation:
Face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946 and open star cluster NGC 6939 share
this cosmic snapshot,
composed with over 68 hours of image data captured
with a small telescope on planet Earth.
The field of view spans spans about 1 degree
or 2 full moons on the sky toward the northern constellation
Cepheus.
Seen through faint interstellar dust couds near the plane of our
Milky Way galaxy, the stars of
open cluster NGC 6939
are 5,600 light-years in the distance, near bottom right in the frame.
Face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946
is at top left, but lies some 22 million light-years away.
In the last 100 years, 10 supernovae have been discovered
in NGC 6946,
the latest one seen
in 2017.
By comparison, the average rate of supernovae in our Milky Way is about 1
every 100 years or so.
Of course, NGC 6946 is also known as The Fireworks Galaxy.
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A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: spiral galaxy
Publications with words: spiral galaxy
See also: