Federico Vittorio Mantovani, taken from Valico di San Fermo, Genoa, Italy
IC 342 is a relatively nearby galaxy, just 11 million light-years away and glowing at magnitude 8.4. But it earns its nickname, the Hidden Galaxy, because it lies in Camelopardalis in a crowded region of sky near the Milky Way’s equator. This imager captured it with a 12-inch scope and one-shot color camera to take 8.8 hours of exposure.