Snapshot of the Hidden Galaxy IC342

[gorann]

This spring was wide field IFN season for me with my RASAs and I only aimed my good old 14" SCT at a galaxy twice. For IC342 I really only thought I could use the data to add to my wide field RASA image from the night before in order to bring out a bit more detail in the galaxy. Yesterday I had a proper go at processing this data and I was surprised how much details were in there although I did not even have 3 hours. The atmosphere must have been quite steady during that period since this is at 3550 mm focal length. It is also at f/10 so more integration time would have been nice but 14" aperture seems to help as well as my Bortle 2-3 sky.

Imaged on the 19 th of April with the Meade 14" LX200R and ASI071MC (gain 200). I intended to use my new QHY268M but even the latest version of AstroImager on my Mac laptop refused to recognize it and I could not figure out how to get the rudimentary imaging program provided by QHY to work (not even QHY recommend their program). My Windows laptops, where Astroimager works fine with the QHY268M, were fully occupied with the RASAs, so I had to switch to the ASI071MC. Therefore I did not get started until after midnight and nights are short here. So I only got 33 x 5 min (2.75 hours).

This is what Wiki writes about it: IC 342 (also known as Caldwell 5) is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis, located relatively close to the Milky Way. Despite its size and actual brightness, its location in dusty areas near the galactic equator makes it difficult to observe, leading to the nickname "The Hidden Galaxy", though it can readily be detected even with binoculars. If the galaxy were not obscured, it would be visible by naked eye. The dust makes it difficult to determine its precise distance; modern estimates range from about 7 Mly to about 11 Mly.

Cheers, Göran