The Fireworks Galaxy and NGC 6939

I like finding objects that are close to one another in the sky like this interesting pair. Of course, they are many millions of light years apart from one another, but from our perspective they are neighbors. The spiral galaxy to the lower-left is cataloged as NGC 6946, but is more commonly known as the Fireworks Galaxy due to the unusually large number of supernovae recorded there in the past century. The Fireworks Galaxy is located along the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus.  Distance estimates vary between 10 and a little over 20 million light years away.

Open cluster NGC 6939 is considerably closer, at about 4000 light years, in the constellation Cepheus.

Fireworks Galaxy and NGC 6939; Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D); ST80 on Vixen SP mount; 16x120 @ ISO-3200