Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Camelopardalis (Cam)  ·  Contains:  HD23189  ·  IC 342
IC 342 - The Hidden Galaxy - In HaLRGB, Ani Shastry
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IC 342 - The Hidden Galaxy - In HaLRGB

IC 342 - The Hidden Galaxy - In HaLRGB, Ani Shastry
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IC 342 - The Hidden Galaxy - In HaLRGB

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Description

IC 342 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation of Camelopardalis as seen from the Earth. Because of its location behind the dusty areas of the galactic equator, it's rather difficult to observe, giving it the nickname "The Hidden Galaxy". It is estimated to be between 7 and 11 million light years away, around 75,000 light years across, and contains approximately 100 billion stars.

Given the on-going effects on El Nino, it took me about 8 nights spread across January to capture sufficient high quality data. Processing it was also challenging as I wanted to bring out the subtle layers of galactic dust while preventing the galaxy itself from getting blown out, and I spent around 7-8 hours in total processing it.

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IC 342 - The Hidden Galaxy - In HaLRGB, Ani Shastry