The Hidden Galaxy - IC 342 (HaLRGB) (James Hawks)

The Hidden Galaxy - IC 342 (HaLRGB)

The Hidden Galaxy (IC 342) is a is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis. Its location behind dusty areas near the our galactic equator makes it difficult to observe, leading to the name The Hidden Galaxy. The dust makes it difficult to determine its precise distance but modern estimates range from about 7 Mly to about 11 Mly away.

This image was captured in a Queen Creek (Arizona) Bortle 7/8 backyard using a Skywatcher Esprit 150ED telescope. The telescope is mounted on a 10Micron GM2000 HPS II mount. The camera is a ZWO ASI 2600MM Pro using Antlia VPRO LRGB and HA 3nm filters. It was captured over 5 nights (2022-12-19 to 2022-12-24). The images were stacked/processed in Pixinsight and fine-tuning done in Photoshop.

Acquisition:
   Location: Queen Creek, AZ Bortle 7/8
   Dates: 2022-12-19 to 2022-12-24
   Lights (Dithered, Cooled -15°C, Gain 100):
       225 x 60s L
       45 x 300s R
       45 x 300s G
       45 x 300s B
       35 x 600s HA
   Bias: 200
   Flats: 25 Each Filter

Hardware:
   Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MM PRO
   Scope: Skywatcher Esprit 150ED
   Focuser: FocusCube2
   Guide Camera: ASI 174mm Mini
   Guide Scope: ZWO OAG-L
   Mount: GM2000 HPS II
   Filters: Antlia VPRO LRGB, HA 3nm

Software:
   NINA
   Pixinsight
   Photoshop

Processing:
   Stacked in Pixinsight (WBPP, SubframeSelector, ImageIntegration)
   Pixinsight (DCrop, DBE, BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator, ChannelCombination, BGNeutralization, SpectrophotometricCC, SCNR, LRGBCombination, GeneralizedHS, StarXTerminator, PixelMath(+HA))
   Photoshop (AstroFlat Pro, Camera Raw, Image Color/Levels/Brightness/Vibrance/Saturation)

N.I.N.A. Users
ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Skywatcher Esprit ED Super APO Triplet
Arizona Astrophotographers

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape
Artificial satellite

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
PixInsight job	Q774DC6I32ZDASG46DGRFXD5PXMCK3TI
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	03h46m44s.796
RA (top/left)	03h50m50s.000
RA (top/right)	03h42m33s.559
RA (bottom/right)	03h42m44s.396
RA (bottom/left)	03h50m51s.645

Dec (center)	+68°05′54″.49
Dec (top/left)	+68°19′08″.63
Dec (top/right)	+68°18′04″.71
Dec (bottom/right)	+67°52′18″.80
Dec (bottom/left)	+67°53′20″.49

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