Galaxy
Fireworks Galaxy (NGC6946)
In Cygnus (Cyg) • Magnitude 9.1 • 11 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with Fireworks Galaxy pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
A face-on spiral in Cepheus famous for its high supernova rate.
Fireworks Galaxy at a glance
| Catalog IDs | N 6946 |
| Type | Galaxy |
| Constellation | Cygnus (Cyg) |
| Right ascension | 20h 34m 52s |
| Declination | +60° 09' 14" |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.10 |
| Surface brightness | 23.7 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 11.4 × 10.8 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 75° |
| Best imaging months | Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov |
How to image Fireworks Galaxy
Fireworks Galaxy sits in the constellation Cygnus at right ascension 20h 34m 52s and declination +60° 09' 14". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window. As a galaxy, Fireworks Galaxy needs the darkest skies you can find: surface brightness, not just apparent magnitude, drives whether it will lift out of the gradient.