Extinction maps for the inner Galactic plane. Top panel: AKS extinction map, produced using the method of Majewski et al. (2011), covering 342 < l < 352, − 2 < b < +2 deg. Middle panel: EJKS map, produced using the method of Gonzalez et al. (2011a) for the same region (see Sect. 2). Horizontal lines are at b = 0, indicating the Galactic plane, and at |b| = 0.8. Circular areas mark the region around the window and the control field (see Sect. 2). Bottom panel: EJKS map zoomedin the window’s region. The squared and circular areas marked in white are described in Figs. 2 and 3. The horizontal solid line indicates the Galactic plane. The vertical bar shows the colour code for each map.