'IC 342 (also known as the Hidden Galaxy) is an intermediate spiral galaxy of some 60 thousand light-years across that lies approximately 10.7 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Camelopardalis (the Giraffe), while it is receding from us at about 31 kilometers per second.

It is one of the brightest two galaxies in the IC 342/Maffei Group of galaxies, one of the galaxy groups that is closest to the Local Group. However, this galaxy lies at low galactic latitude, only 10.5 degrees from the galactic equator. Therefore, it is heavily obscured by stars, gas and dust clouds in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Without all of the interstellar matter between us and IC 342, it would be one of the brightest galaxies in our night skies.

Even though IC 342’s light is dimmed by intervening cosmic clouds, my image shows a bright core which is bursting with young stars, obscuring dust lanes, blue star clusters, and glowing pink star-forming regions along rather broad spiral arms that wind far from the galaxy’s core. The arms are mostly made of intermediate-aged stars and, in the inner arms, a substantial population of old stars. The denser pockets of gas in the spiral arms trigger the formation of new stars.

The cluster of stars near the nucleus probably formed in a starburst some 60 million years ago that was probably triggered by gas inflow into the central 1,000 light-years of the galaxy driven by the presence of a small bar. The newly arrived dense gas formed a central ring which triggered the starburst and now surrounds the nuclear starburst region. That makes IC 342 the closest galaxy to the Milky Way with a circumnuclear starburst ring. At least 5 giant molecular clouds have been found associated with the molecular ring along with numerous star-forming (HII) regions.

Its face-on appearance in the sky—as opposed to our tilted and edge-on views of many other nearby galaxies, such as the large spiral Andromeda galaxy (Messier 31)—makes IC 342 a prime target for studies of star formation and astrochemistry.'

Info courtesy of Anne's Astronomy News at http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/ic-342/ with thanks.

This galaxy has been on my 'to do' list for many years. I never seemed to get around to it because it is an extremely difficult subject (despite all the wonderful images of it around the web). So, on a special, dark, clear night earlier this week I decided to give it a go. I certainly couldn't see anything of it at all through my 10" and my 120 second subs barely registered anything except the very bright core. It was a freezing cold night with ice on the inside of my dome and after 2 hours exposing I decided enough was enough. Next morning I worked on the data and got this image after a lot of stretching and processing. Not great but at least I've done it - at last.

Thanks for looking,

Happy New Year to All,

David.