File:IC 342, Hidden Galaxy (49935304392).png

A 4k, dual screen wallpaper version of this is available here: https://www.flickr.com/photo.gne?short=2jna7xR

Famously overlooked grand design spiral galaxy IC 342 as seen last year (2019 Oct) by Hubble. It is situated rather close to the plane of our own galaxy, making it difficult to discern through all the dust and stars between us and it. It's similar in size to the Triangulum Galaxy, but dimmed so much by dust that it wasn't discovered until a couple hundred years later. Joint observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory are ongoing as astronomers survey for various x-ray emitting stellar sources within the galaxy.

Data from the following proposal were used to create this image: The Giant Hiding in Our Backyard: The Nearby Spiral Starburst Galaxy IC 342

This was my first attempt at assembling a mosaic using Astrodrizzle. I don't yet know how to align different filter sets to one another, but the mosaic assembly was much simplified by letting the software take care of it. It's misaligned by maybe half a pixel in some places, and less than that overall. Not perfect, but I will continue to learn.

I increased the saturation substantially for the final image. Cyans were shifted to slightly bluer hues using Camera Raw. Small triangles were filled with cloned data in all four corners in an attempt to eke just a little more overall data into the frame.

Red: ACS/WFC F606W Green: Pseudo Blue: ACS/WFC F435W