At a distance of just 11.2 Mly, IC 342 represents one of the closest massive spirals beyond the Local Group, exhibiting the abundance of star-forming activity at low inclination – almost face on (i ~ 30°).
This H-α LRGB image was obtained with the A1 telescope installed at the Alnitak Remote Observatory in Nerpio, Spain:
- 0.43 m PlaneWave CDK17 f/6.8 Corrected Dall-Kirkham Telescope
- Software Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount
- Moravian Instruments C3-61000 Pro, Back-Illuminated CMOS Camera
- Chroma 50 mm filters (5 nm narrowband H-α, LRGB)
- FLI CenterLine CL-1-14 12+2-position Dual Color Filter Wheel
- Optec Sagitta Off-Axis Guider with ASI174MM Guide Camera
Acquisition software: DC-3 ACP, MaximDL Pro, TheSky X
Processing software: DeepSkyStacker, PixInsight, RC Astro BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator, GraXpert, GIMP.
