IC 342 - Galaxy in Camelopardalis
A galaxy said to be much like our own, part of the Maffei group of galaxies. This cluster is the next nearest to our own local group.
  • RA: 3:47
  • Dec: 68:06
  • Size: ~21x20'
  • Magnitude: 12.0
  • Distance: 10 Mly
  • Constellation: Camelopardalis
  • Millennium Star Atlas: Vol. I, p. 31-2
  • Scope: 12.5" Ritchey-Chretien at f/9
  • Autoguider: ST-4 in faint mode
  • Sky conditions: Excellent transparency, only fair seeing
  • Film: FLI Dream Machine CCD
  • Exposure: 10x180 seconds L
  • Date: 11-19-03

An evening of remarkable ups and downs. I intended to do a reshoot of M74 but failing to get set up in time, combined with terrible seeing once I did, put paid to that idea. I was just about to give up completely when the seeing suddenly improved to something halfway decent and it occurred to me that this galaxy was in prime position to image. Things went pretty well until about 3:50 am, when the first indications of an aurora started up, with white shafts of light gently playing around the northern horizon over Dekalb. This went on for some time without interfering with the shot until about 4:20 am when the intensity suddenly spiked dramatically with bright reds, greens and towering shafts of white light, all reaching nearly 45 degrees off the horizon. Shortly after, the aurora disappeared completely with no further activity. And just to really top it all off, a sizeable number of meteors zoomed past during the course of the evening, probably some 20 or so as bolides.


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