NGC6946- The Fireworks Galaxy - OSC Version (Cosgrove's Cosmos (Patrick Cosgrove))

NGC6946- The Fireworks Galaxy - OSC Version

NGC6946, known as the Fireworks Galaxy and Caldwell 12, is a face-on spiral galaxy on the boundary between the constellations Cepheus and Cyngnus. It is located 25.2 Million Light years away and is about the 1/3 of the size of our own Milkyway Galaxy.

I first took a shot of this galaxy about a year ago now and I was delighted with the results! It was one of my first galaxy images and I could actually see the arms of the galaxy!

During the past few nights I revisited this target and I shot it with two Telescope at the same time. In one (this one!) I used an One-Shot-Color Camera and in the other I used a Mono camera with L,R,G,&B filters. I wanted to see the difference I would get with both approaches.

The OSC version was the result of 130 frames of 150 sec for a total exposure of about 5.5 hours.

The Mono version had about the same level of exposure.

As it turns out, I had a parameter set wrong and the images ended of being rotated 90 degrees from one another. Despite that, take a look at both of them and tell which one you like better.

Here are the image details for this one:

130 x 150 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C

50 x 2 second Bias exposures

25 x 150 second Dark exposures bin 1x1 @ -15C

50 Flats

Hardware:

Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO

Guide Scope: Apterna 60mm

Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini

Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2

Field Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon

Mount: Ioptron CEM60

Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras

Capture Software:

Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro

Image Processing:

Stacking: Deepsky Stacker

Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second guessing, editior regret and much swearing…..

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3875959
PixInsight job	Z5RK3DMN8WU30QAFEBG0KD9FQYAHD9TB
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	20h34m48s.62
RA (top/left)	20h36m20s.13
RA (top/right)	20h37m21s.46
RA (bottom/right)	20h33m14s.21
RA (bottom/left)	20h32m18s.32

Dec (center)	+60°10′04″.3
Dec (top/left)	+59°44′48″.7
Dec (top/right)	+60°30′19″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+60°35′16″.5
Dec (bottom/left)	+59°49′39″.8

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