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. It is highly obscured by interstellar matter of the Milky Way galaxy, as it is quite close to the galactic plane.

Six supernovae have been detected in NGC 6946:

With this number of supernovae which have been found in this galaxy, NGC 6946 is leading the statistics, perhaps together with M83.

In the SAC 110 best NGC object list. No. 108 in the RASC Finest NGC Objects list. Caldwell 12 in Patrick Moore's list.

  • NED data of NGC 6946
  • SIMBAD Data of NGC 6946
  • Observing Reports for NGC 6946 (IAAC Netastrocatalog)


    Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
    Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

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    Last Modification: 29 Mar 1998, 12:20 MET