The article and its title are translated; processing notes and some crop captions are still in German.
NGC 6952
NGC 6951 / NGC 6952 – a bar and two sweeping arms
A warm, elongated centre lies between two blue-toned arcs, with dark dust traces following the inner spiral. NGC 6951 is small within the dense star field, yet the contrast between its bright middle and loosely sweeping arms is already clear.
Two numbers, one galaxy. The filename includes NGC 6951 and NGC 6952. SIMBAD lists both designations for the same object. This is a single barred spiral in Cepheus, approximately 70 million light-years away, rather than a pair of interacting galaxies.
The bar does more than shape the image. Its elongated stellar distribution changes the gravitational forces within the disc and can transport gas inward. High-resolution observations reveal a ring of intense star formation around the nucleus. That small nuclear ring is distinct from the large spiral arms visible here. The bright central region dominates this photograph; a clearly resolved nuclear ring is not claimed.
Colour and perspective. In this broadband rendering, the middle appears yellowish and the outer arms bluer. Such differences are consistent with different stellar populations, but dust and processing also affect them. Most sharp points in front of and beside the galaxy are Milky Way stars. The close-up brings the overall structure forward: the bar, inner dust features and two broad spiral arms.
Where in the sky
The rectangle is this image's real field of view, with its measured rotation — not a symbol. Constellation figures and star positions come from SIMBAD.
7 entries sit within 30° of each other here — click a field to jump to it.
Crops
Bar and arms
The bar and spiral arcs of NGC 6951
19.1′ × 7.2′·20h 37m 14.10s +66° 06′ 20.3″
This wide close-up shows the galaxy as a coherent shape. Its bright middle is elongated, surrounded by blue-toned arms of uneven brightness. Dark lanes divide parts of the inner disc. The structural markers locate the centre and two visible arm sections. They are landmarks within one galaxy, not separate catalogue objects.
Acquisition and processing
Acquisition. 6 × 120 s + 7 × 300 s = 47 min, recorded between 9 and 16 September 2026 in Friedrichsdorf. Camera: ZWO ASI585MC Air, Askar 120APO at 840 mm focal length, broadband, gain 200. Exposure counts and dates come from the acquisition metadata and integration report; the telescope identification was confirmed by the photographer.
Processing. All 13 selected light frames were registered, locally normalised and integrated; the run includes 2× drizzle integration. The documented PiMagic workflow uses spectrophotometric colour calibration, gradient correction, sharpening, noise reduction and separate star and object layers. Drizzle refines the sampling grid but does not guarantee twice the actual resolution. This entry uses the curated AVIF version with an HDR gain map and an SDR rendering.
Field and overlays. The current file measures 2797 × 1864 pixels. Its astrometric solution gives approximately 0.355″ per pixel and a field of 0.276° × 0.184°. Catalogue positions and explicitly identified structural landmarks are projected through this solution. Marker circles are locating aids, not measurements of object boundaries.