NGC 6946

Spiral Galaxy NGC 6946 (= H IV.76), type Sc, in Cepheus

[NGC 6946 image]
Right Ascension 20 : 34.8 (h:m)
Declination +60 : 09 (deg:m)
Distance 10,000 (kly)
Visual Brightness 8.9 (mag)
Apparent Dimension 11 x 10 (arc min)

Discovered by William Herschel in 1798.

8.9-mag NGC 6946 was discovered by William Herschel on September 9, 1798.

NGC 6946 is a rather nearby spiral galaxy, which at one time was suspected to be an outlying member of the Local Group (Hubble 1936). It is highly obscured by interstellar matter of the Milky Way galaxy, as it is quite close to the galactic plane.

Eight supernovae have been detected in NGC 6946 as of this writing (December 2004):

With this number of supernovae which have been found in this galaxy, NGC 6946 is leading the statistics, just one SN more than follow-up M83.

In the SAC 110 best NGC object list. In the RASC's Finest N.G.C. Objects Objects list. Caldwell 12 in Patrick Moore's list.

  • NED data of NGC 6946
  • SIMBAD Data of NGC 6946
  • Publications on NGC 6946 (NASA ADS)
  • Observing Reports for NGC 6946 (IAAC Netastrocatalog)
  • NGC Online data for NGC 6946

    References



    Hartmut Frommert
    Christine Kronberg
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    Last Modification: December 8, 2004