IC 342

IC342 is a spiral galaxy located near the galactic equator in the constellation Camelopardalis. This galaxy, located about 7 million light years away is a massive galaxy that obscured by stars, gas, and dust in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. IC342 is a member the Maffei group of galaxies. This group is the closest group of galaxies outside of our Local Group. The galaxy at the 9:00 position on the outskirts of the galaxy (near the two bright stars and pointed to by the Ha region at 9:30 or so) has identified been identified as IRAS 03443+6754.

This image was processed as an LRGB image with Ha data incorporated into the color channels using the Lighten function in Photoshop. The data consists of 5.5 hours of Ha, 8 hrs of Lum data, 2.75 hrs B, 2 hrs G, and 3.75 hrs R (22 hours data in total).