2003PASP..115.1135W

We have reobserved the nearby galaxy IC 342 through U, B, and I filters using a CCD system with a sufficiently large field of view that the entire galaxy can be imaged in one exposure. Our purpose is to better quantify the optical structure of IC 342 on the basis of modern detectors. Through a combination of surface photometry and grid photometry, we have extracted structural parameters and color distributions for IC 342. We conclude that (1) the scale length of the underlying light distribution is approximately 250''±10'', (2) little evidence for significant reddening variations is observed across the face of IC 342, and (3) consistency between the disk and/or spiral arm component of IC 342 compared to other Sc galaxies is best obtained with a foreground reddening value of A_b∼2.0, significantly lower than most other recent estimates (which are as high as A_b∼3.3).