This image is of the Fireworks Galaxy, which is also known as NGC6946. It is found on the boundary between the constellations Cygnus and Cepheus in the Northern sky.

Lots more information about this object can be found on its Wikipedia page.

This was a really tough target to create anything like a good image of. It's a very faint galaxy in a region of the sky that is significantly obscured by interstellar matter. This is because it lies so close to the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.

What I did learn from trying to capture this, is that creating a good image of very faint objects requires lots and lots of total exposure time - much more than the single night's worth of data capture that I had to work with. I may return to this target in the future, but I have found since then that I am much more interested in capturing images of nebulae than of galaxies.

You can view this image in the WorldWideTelescope by clicking here.