                    APOD: 2017 October 27 - Mirach s Ghost

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2017 October 27
                                      [2]
                                Mirach's Ghost
                 Image Credit & Copyright [3] : Kent Wood [4]

Explanation: As far as ghosts go [5] , Mirach's Ghost isn't really that scary
[6] . Mirach's Ghost is just a faint, fuzzy galaxy, well known to astronomers,
that happens to be seen nearly along the line-of-sight to Mirach [7] , a
bright star. Centered in [8]  this star field, Mirach is also called Beta
Andromedae [9] . About 200 light-years distant, Mirach is a red giant [10]
star, cooler than the Sun but much larger and so intrinsically much brighter
than our parent star. In most telescopic views, glare and diffraction spikes
[11]  tend to hide things that lie near Mirach and make the faint, fuzzy
galaxy look like a ghostly internal reflection of the almost overwhelming
starlight. Still, appearing in this sharp image [12] just above and to the
left of Mirach, Mirach's Ghost is cataloged as galaxy NGC 404 [13] and is
estimated to be some 10 million light-years away.

                    Tomorrow's picture: a dying star [14]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [26] (MTU [27] ) & Jerry Bonnell [28]
                                  (UMCP [29] )
          NASA Official:  Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [30] .
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              A service of: ASD [32]  at NASA [33]  / GSFC [34]
                           & Michigan Tech. U. [35]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1710/MirachNGC404KentWood.jpg
  [3] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [4] http://www.pbase.com/kvwood/profile
  [5] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Old_Astronomer
  [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
  [7] http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/Sow/mirach.html
  [8] ap150926.html
  [9] http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/
constellations/Andromeda.html
  [10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant
  [11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike
  [12] http://www.pbase.com/image/166334529
  [13] http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4985
  [14] ap171028.html
  [15] ap171026.html
  [16] archivepix.html
  [17] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [18] lib/aptree.html
  [19] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [20] calendar/allyears.html
  [21] /apod.rss
  [22] lib/edlinks.html
  [23] lib/about_apod.html
  [24] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=171027
  [25] ap171028.html
  [26] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [27] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [28] http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [29] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [30] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [31] http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [32] http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [33] http://www.nasa.gov/
  [34] http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [35] http://www.mtu.edu/
