Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Camelopardalis (Cam)  ·  Contains:  IC 342
IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis), 



    
        

            Mike Oates
IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis)
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IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis)

IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis), 



    
        

            Mike Oates
IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis)
Powered byPixInsight

IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis)

Acquisition details

Dates:
Jan. 2, 2017
Frames:
Astrodon L-NIR: 23×600(3h 50′) bin 2×2
Astrodon L-NIR: 20×60(20′) bin 4×4
Blue: 29×151(1h 12′ 59″)
Green: 29×144(1h 9′ 36″)
Ha 3nm: 26×623(4h 29′ 58″)
Red: 55×367(5h 36′ 25″)
Sloan i': 107×431(12h 48′ 37″) bin 2×2
Sloan i': 77×67(1h 25′ 59″) bin 4×4
Integration:
30h 53′ 34″
Avg. Moon age:
4.01 days
Avg. Moon phase:
17.10%
Mean SQM:
18.60

Basic astrometry details

Astrometry.net job: 1545768

RA center: 03h46m48s.2

DEC center: +68°0419

Pixel scale: 1.437 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: 359.930 degrees

Field radius: 0.856 degrees

Resolution: 3314x2722

File size: 6.5 MB

Locations: The Hills Observatory, Manchester, United Kingdom

Data source: Backyard

Description

The subs that go to make up this image are a right mixture of both different exposure times and also bin settings with the bulk being bin 2x2 and 4x4 so that I could get lots of data in a relative short period of time, if you count 31hrs as short!! A fairly quick image for me as this was only taken over 3 months Nov 2016 – Jan 2017.

A difficult galaxy to image and I have used two different NIR filters to capture most of the data. Ha was used to pick out the nebulosity in the arms.

The overall appearance of this galaxy is on the red side due to the dust in our galaxy preventing a lot of the blue light getting through.

This galaxy is the largest in the IC 342 / Maffei Group of galaxies, many of which are very faint and most hidden by dust. It’s my first in the group to complete, the rest, well, they will take a ‘little’ longer There are ~ 24 galaxies in the group, but the list is not complete or set in stone as data from some is not good enough to be sure that they are in the group, again due to the intervening dust making the distances & size unclear.

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IC 342 (Hidden Galaxy in Camelopardalis), 



    
        

            Mike Oates