IC 342 is a face-on spiral galaxy located just beyond the plane of the Milky Way, where dense foreground stars and interstellar dust obscure and redden its light. Often called the Hidden Galaxy, it lies roughly 11 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis and is one of the nearest large spiral galaxies to our own. Despite its proximity, extinction from the Milky Way makes accurate distance measurements challenging and softens the contrast of its spiral structure when viewed from Earth.

In this deep image, delicate spiral arms wind outward from a luminous core, threaded with faint pink regions that trace active star formation within IC 342’s disk. The galaxy’s mottled appearance reflects a mix of young blue star clusters, older yellow stellar populations, and scattered H II regions embedded in dust lanes. Captured from Wëntger, Luxembourg using a personal telescope setup, this view reveals the subtle beauty of a major spiral galaxy that often goes unnoticed behind the veil of our own galaxy.