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This
is a face-on spiral galaxy in Cygnus that is one of the closest
galaxies outside of the Local Group. Walter Scott Houston
called it a "fine galaxy... easily seen in even small
telescopes." He also observed that "Despite the
glittering foreground star field, NGC 6946 stands out well."
In a region where galaxies are sparse due to the obscuring dust of
the Milky Way, this galaxy would appear much brighter if it were
elsewhere. So far, an unprecidented six supernovae have been
observed in NGC 6946!
As a bonus, the tiny
open cluster NGC 6939 lies within the same low-power eyepiece field.
This 7' grouping of about 80 stars has an integrated magnitude of
~10. They were born together fairly recently (about 1.6
billion years ago).
In my six inch the
galaxy appeared as an oval diffuse haze with no central
condensation. The tiny cluster was an unexpected treat.
The brighter stars in the cluster were plainly resolved, but a haze
of unresolved fainter stars was also visible.
A six-inch view at 50x.
North is down and east is right.
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