                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

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

                               2021 October 28

                               Mirach's Ghost
                   Image Credit & Copyright: John Chumack

   Explanation: As far as ghosts go, Mirach's Ghost isn't really that
   scary. 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, a bright star. Centered in this star field, Mirach is also
   called Beta Andromedae. About 200 light-years distant, Mirach is a red
   giant 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 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
   just above and to the right of Mirach, Mirach's Ghost is cataloged as
   galaxy NGC 404 and is estimated to be some 10 million light-years away.

                      Tomorrow's picture: just the dust
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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