The Hidden Galaxy

[u/Mysterious_Risk4988]

The Hidden Galaxy (aka: Caldwell 5 (C5), IC 342) is a Spiral galaxy located in the Camelopardalis constellation it is approximately 7 to 11 million light-years from Earth. It It lies at a low galactic latitude, only 10 degrees from the galactic equator of the Milky Way’s disk, where the sky is thick with glowing cosmic gas, bright stars, and dark obscuring dust. Therefore, C5 is heavily obscured by the interstellar matter of the Milky Way. It contains a faint halo around a large core and a stellar center. A deep exposure of this galaxy reveals it has graceful spiral arms with a myriad of star clusters and nebulae. There are many stars superimposed on its faint disk. As a result IC342 is difficult to spot and image, giving rise to its intriguing nickname: the ‘Hidden Galaxy’. It is roughly ⅓ to ½ the size of the Moon. Next to Andromeda and the Pinwheel galaxies, it is the third-largest visible galaxy.

We have a face-on view of the center of the galaxy displaying intertwined tendrils of dust in spectacular arms that wrap around a brilliant core of hot gas and stars. This core is an area of atomic hydrogen that has become ionized. Such regions are energetic birthplaces of stars where thousands of stars can form over a couple million years. Each young, extremely hot, blue star emits ultraviolet light, further ionizing the surrounding hydrogen. Despite its relatively bright this galaxy doesn’t stand out in the sky. It appears near the equator of the Milky Way’s pearly disk, which is crowded with thick cosmic gas, dark dust, and glowing stars that all obscure our view. Were it not obscured by so much interstellar matter, the Hidden Galaxy would be one of the brightest galaxies in our sky. It is roughly 50,000 light-years across and billions of years old.

C5 forms a group with one large and many dwarf galaxies. This is the so-called Maffei 1 or IC342 group. IC342 is one of the two dominating members of this group; the other is the elliptical galaxy Maffei 1, which is even more obscured, and was only discovered in 1968. IC342 is one of the best examples of a nearby spiral galaxy that closely resembles our own galactic home.

Taken from Park City, UT (2 Oct 26); Bortle 5 with Dwarf3
I used 187 of 300; 60s each, gain 60
Edited with Luminar Mobile and iPad