NGC 6951

© Albert van Duin

NGC 6952, in the constellation of Cepheus, was discovered in 1877 by Jerome Coggia. Earlier, Lewis Swift had independently found a nebula nearby in 1885 that was named NGC 6951. Denning later showed that these were duplicate observations of the same object, but Coggia had reported a position that was off by 20 arc minutes. The designation NGC 6952 was later dropped and Dreyer issued a correction in the IC2.

NGC 6951 is classified as SAB(rs)bc, a barred spiral galaxy. Its bright core also suggests it is a Seyfert galaxy (a mild active galactic nucleus or AGN). Its distance is about 65 million light years, and two supernovae have been detected in recent years: 1999el and 2000E. The galaxies location in the sky also means that it is partly obscured galactic cirrus (interstellar dust) as this deep image shows. The galaxy is interesting because it is showing both strong star formation activity and an active core. As the galaxy is an isolated system it is not clear what has triggered the current round of star formation.

The image is a result of 16 hours integration time through LRGB filters with a 0.4m reflector equipped with a cooled CCD located in Beilen.