This image shows two rarely imaged galaxies, IC 284 (center) and NGC 1186 (left) shining through some dusty filaments in the constellation Perseus.  NGC 1186 is double-catalogued as NGC 1174.

IC 284 is a type Sc spiral making its Astrobin debut.  Though it surely appears as a faint smudge in wide-field images of the region, I could not find another dedicated image of it on this site.  It is at least partially dimmed by dust, resulting in its muddy colors in the image.  There is a another galaxy present within its arms, designated V Zw 319 (2MASX J03060656+4221569), which is possibly a background object.

NGC 1186 is making its second appearance on Astrobin, with the first being posted 2 months ago by Gary Imm.  It is a type SB(r)bc spiral that measures 3.2’ x 1.2’ and shines at magnitude 11.7.  My image does not show as much detail as Gary’s, not only because of the smaller aperture of my refractor, but because of poor seeing during data collection. 

For those of you who remember the television series Lost, you surely will recognize the Smoke Monster in this image reincarnated in the form of IFN.  I have not seen the monster on TV in a long time, but it seems to be taking a vacation in Perseus. 

Inside the dust at the lower right is IC 288, a small (1.0’ x 0.3’), elongated, orange patch near a group of orange stars.  The object designated IC 1872 by the plate-solver is a bit of a mystery.  It is designated as “Other” in the IC catalogue.  It appears to be a compact group of stars in my broadband image, but I could not find much information on it.

One other object of interest near the lower edge of this field is the star V430 Per, a Mira-type long-period variable.  It brightened considerably during the months over which the data were acquired.  The “B” revision shows V430 Per blinking between its Sept. 17 and Dec. 15 levels.

This image is not as sharp or detailed as my previous galaxy projects with the Esprit 100ED, but it’s not the fault of the little refractor.  Clear skies in November and December were welcomed after departure of the other Smoke Monster (Canadian Wildfires), but the seeing has been absolutely horrible at my location the past few weeks.  In any other month this year, many of the subs used in this project would have been tossed out due to high FWHM.  I did my best to apply modest star size reduction and sharpening without ruining the image, but the raw data were really quite blurry.  I’ll take whatever clear skies I can get, though, as 2023 has been starved for imaging time.