IC 342

IC 342 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis.

IC 342 was discovered in 1895 by W. F. Denning. Edwin Hubble suspected it to be member of the Local Group, but later observations showed that it is at a distance of at least about 6, perhaps more probably 10 million light-years.

IC 342 lies at a low galactic latitude, only 10.5 degrees from the galactic equator. Therefore, it is heavily obscured by the interstellar matter of the Milky Way; recent estimates give an extinction of about 2.4 magnitudes. Without this extinction, this galaxy would be among the brightest in the sky, and certainly would have been discovered much earlier.

At magnitude 9.1, the galaxy is faint, with exceptionally large dimensions of 21.4 x 20.9'. 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. SW of center is a string of six stars running northwest to southeast and four 11th magnitude stars are visible NE of center. There is a loose clump of stars south of the halo.

IC 342 is a mere 7 million light-years distant, and forms a group with one large and many dwarf galaxies. This is the so-called Maffei 1 or IC 342 group. IC 342 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.

IC 342 may have undergone a recent burst of star formation activity, and is close enough to have gravitationally influenced the evolution of the local group of galaxies and the Milky Way. It is often suggested that IC 342 is one of the best examples of a nearby spiral galaxy that closely resembles our own galactic home.