The Fireworks Galaxy
Hayden Chan Yik Hei
Award: Top 100
School: concord college
Teacher: bart wargos
Category: Natural
Photo #19348
The Fireworks Galaxy
This is an image of the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC6946), a galaxy in the galactic plane spanning across Cepheus and Cygnus. It has got its name, as there have been ten supernovae outbursts in the past century. It is 25 million light years away from us, with a diameter of 87300 light years. It spans a huge (by deep-sky-object standards) 16x11.2 arcminutes squared in our sky. Most galaxies we observe are outside of the galactic plane, such as the Sunflower Galaxy. The fireworks galaxy, however, is within the galactic plane, allowing us to have a lot more background stars compared to images of other galaxies. The background stars enrich the image and contrast the galaxy well.
My picture of it involved using a 6-inch Newtonian telescope and a CCD dedicated astrophotography camera. I also used an equatorial mount to counteract the Earth's rotation to capture long-exposure images. I have obtained 92 frames of 5-minute exposures, giving me a total exposure of 460 minutes. These include 320 minutes of broadband data. And 140 minutes of narrowband data, using an H-alpha filter to isolate the red nebulosity in the galaxy. I stacked all the frames together to obtain my final image using the PixInsight program and extracted all the faint details of the galaxy.
As cliché as it is, we are looking at the galaxy as it was 25 million years ago. In such a massive galaxy filled with lots of star-forming nebulae, who can guarantee we wouldn't find life there?
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