  We investigated the potential of using DENIS for studies of galaxies behind
the obscuration layer of our Milky Way, and mapping the Galactic extinction. As
a pilot study, we examined DENIS I-, J-, and K-band images of heavily obscured
galaxies from a deep optical (B_J-band) galaxy survey in the Zone of Avoidance.
We tried to uncover additional galaxies at latitudes where the Milky Way
remains fully opaque, i.e. we conducted a `blind' search at |b| < 5deg and A_B
> 4-5 mag. Furthermore, we determined the I, J and K magnitudes of galaxies in
the low-latitude, nearby, rich cluster Abell 3627 and compared the resulting
colour-colour diagram with that of an unobscured cluster.
