NGC 404 - Mirach's Ghost (in Andromeda)

Dear friends ... and obviously that excludes Seanie,

Here is a rarely imaged Seyfert galaxy only seven arc-minutes away from bright Mirach (beta-And, mag 2.06) from last night:

www.perseus.gr/Astro-DSO-NGC-0404.htm

The result came out much better than expected, for there were strong winds and I purposely did not stick around for very long therafter so as not to endanger further my equipment.

Clear skies!

Anthony.

Oh that is wonderful Anthony. Took me a second to locate Mirach's ghost. I was looking closer in to the star. That is simply superb.

Anthony,

Thats an interesting image of the galaxy so close to the star. It's interesting that it is not washed out by the brightness of the main star. As I'm not familiar with that region did you have to make any preparations regarding avoiding overexposing the main star in order to capture the galaxy?
Or may be this wasn't the case!

Eamonn A

www.kingslandobservatory.com

Hi Anto,

That is very nice image well captured.

Carl.

I was trying to spot this last night, but the light pollution and general gunge defeated me. Superb image.

Thanks everyone!

Eamonn, given the huge difference between Mirach (mag 2.06) and the galaxy (mag 14+), I cheated by using my ABG ST-2000XM so as to be able to go long for the galaxy and without really burning Mirach over the whole field of view.

Just to give you an idea with my ST-10XME which is NABG, I will get a vertical spike from top to bottom with just a few seconds exposure.

Anthony.