Attached is an image I took last month. IC 342 also known as Caldwell 5. It was discovered by WF Denning in 1895. IC 342 lies at a low galactic latitude, only 10.5 degrees from the Galactic Equator, or the Milky Way's disc plane. Therefore, it is heavily obscured by interstellar matter of the Milky Way; recent estimates give an extinction of about 2.4 magnitudes; without this extinction, this galaxy would be among the brightest in the sky, and certainly would have been discovered much earlier. Its location behind dusty areas near the Galactic plane gives it its name of “ The Hidden Galaxy”. Its apparent size is just over half of the full moon !! It is located approximately 8 million light years from Earth. IC 342 forms a group with some large and many dwarf galaxies, the so-called Maffei 1 or IC 342 group, or sometimes called IC 342/Maffei group. It is one of two dominating members of that group, the other being elliptical galaxy Maffei, which is even more obscured and was thus only discovered in 1968. Exposures: 25 X 20 min Luminance (8.5 hours) 6 X 20 minutes Red ( 2 hours) 6 X 20 minutes Green ( 2 Hours) 6 X 20 minutes Blue ( 2 Hours) All Binned 1x1 Planewave CDK 17 telescope SBIG STT 8300 ccd camera with FW8G-Stt Filter wheel Astrophysics 1600 GTO
