NGC 6946

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NGC 6946 (also known as the Fireworks Galaxy or Caldwell 12) is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 25.2 million light-years. Ten supernovae have been observed in NGC 6946 in the last century: SN 1917A, SN 1939C, SN 1948B, SN 1968D, SN 1969P, SN 1980K, SN 2002hh, SN 2004et, SN 2008S, and SN 2017eaw. For this reason NGC 6946 in 2005 was dubbed the "Fireworks Galaxy", a name becoming increasingly popular. NGC 6946 has an unusually high rate of supernovae production compared to our Milky Way galaxy, whose rate averages just one supernova event per century. This is the more remarkable as our Galaxy comprises twice as many stars. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.6 (B) and an apparent size of 11.5 x 9.8 arcmin.

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