NGC 404 (Mirach‘s Ghost)

The star (Mirach or β Andromedae) is a red giant about 200 light years away, pretty close by in the foreground, and hence its bright and orange appearence. It is a variable star, which becomes at some times the brightest star in constellation Andromeda. Of particular interest in this image is the bright cloud next to it on the top left side.
It is a small galaxy 10 million light years away, NGC 404, also called Mirach‘s Ghost for obvious reasons. It is a pretty isolated lenticular formed galaxy just outside our local galaxy group. It is smaller than the Small Magellanic Cloud but has a pretty active core and a ring of active star formation (not visible here), probably triggered by a close encounter or merger with another small galaxy 900 million years ago.
If you look carefully you might see a faint reddish ring on the left side of the image, which is in fact an artifact created by reflections of the bright starlight of Mirach in the optical path of the telescope, which I could not remove from the picture without damaging the image of the galaxy.
Celestron RASA 11 v2
Celestron CGX-L mount
RisingCam ATR3CMOS26000KPA
UV-IR-Cut filter
Bortle 4-5
No moon
94x30sec (47m)
PixInsight