NGC 6946

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:

• SN 1917A occurred on July 19, 1917 when it was discovered by Ritchey. This supernova, situated 37"W and 105"S of the galaxy's nucleus, lightened up to 14.6 mag.
• SN 1939C was discovered by Fritz Zwicky on July 17, 1939 (see IAU Circular No. 793), 215"W and 24"N of the galaxy's center, and peaked at 13.0 mag.
• SN 1948B was found by Mayall when it flashed up on July 6, 1948, 222"E and 60"N of the galaxy's nucleus; it reached magnitude 14.9 (see IAUC 1161)
• SN 1968D brightened up on February 29, 1968 the leap day, 45"E and 20"N of the galaxy's center, and became as bright as 13.5 mag. This supernova was discovered by Wild and Dunlap, and was found to be of type II (see IAUC 2057 and IAUC 6045)
• SN 1969P occurred on December 11, 1969, 5"W and 180"S of the nucleus and reached mag 13.9. It was found by Rosino (see IAUC 2305)
• SN 1980K was discovered by Wild on October 28, 1980 when it occurred 280"E and 166"S of the galaxy's center; it reached mag 11.4 (see IAUC 3532 and AJ 111, 2017)

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

Observing Reports for NGC 6946 (IAAC Netastrocatalog)

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

Last Modification: 29 Mar 1998, 12:20 MET