Mirach and it's Ghost (Kent Wood)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Andromeda (And) · Contains: NGC 404 · The star Mirach (βAnd)

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Mirach and it's Ghost

Link: http://pbase.com/kvwood

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Mirach and it's Ghost

Link: http://pbase.com/kvwood

Beta Andromedae, also known as Mirach, is the central figure of this image. Mirach is a red giant close to the end of it’s stellar life. It is about 100 times larger than the sun, and about 2000 times brighter. Mirach is often used as a pointer star to the Andromeda Galaxy. Above and to the left of Mirach is what appears to be an apparition or ghost of the star. Hence it’s name, Mirach’s Ghost. This is actually NGC 404, a dwarf lenticular galaxy discovered in 1784 by the British astronomer, William Herschel. NGC 404 is thought to have once been a spiral galaxy, but has since become a lenticular through a galactic collision about 1 billion years ago. The light creating this image left Mirach some 200 years ago. As for it’s ghost, NGC 404, those photons have been traveling for 10 million years.

Even though the title of this image may elicit a few scary thoughts appropriate for the Halloween season, I find my exploration of the cosmos peaceful and reassuring. I relate to this expression by Sarah Williams...

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night”

This image represents a few firsts for me. It is my first deep sky post here on Astrobin, since I had set imaging aside for a few years. It is my first image taken with a new scope and my first processed with PI (although I must confess, I did pull it in to photoshop at the end :-). I am pretty rusty, but sure love the feeling I have missed of taking in the grandeur and wonder of the cosmos.

Chosen as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 17, 2017

Published in Sept 2018 issue of Sky and Telescope

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
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This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
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The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1757749
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Mirach and it's Ghost

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