IC 342 is very close to the galactic plane, at an angle of just 10 degrees. This makes it difficult to see, because it’s obscured by dust, stars and debris from our own galaxy, hence the reason it is called “The Hidden Galaxy.” By my calculations, we’re likely peering through about thirty thousand light years of star stuff. It’s a decent sized galaxy, and at just 11 million light years away it seems likely that if it were not so obscured by the Milky Way, it could well be visible to the naked eye. You can find it in the sky in the constellation Camelopardalis, between Ursa Major and Cassiopeia – although as noted, it is not easy to see. This photograph was taken with my RASA 11 astrograph and is the result of about 10 hours exposure over a number of evenings in August of this year. You can just about see the outlines of outer arms – much fainter and more blue in color. Perhaps with longer exposure times I could bring out more of this detail. As with all of my images, a color sensor was used, with no filters. You can see lots of star formation happening, indicated by the presence of all of those pinkish red and yellow nodes. The galaxy core is especially bright – not just because of the central black hole, but also because of intense star formation in this region too. It is referred to as an H II nucleus because of the amount of ionized hydrogen it contains. Personally, I think this is a lovely galaxy, and one that is often overlooked by astrophotographers due to it being relatively “hidden”.
