An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A galaxy discovered in 1784 by William Herschel that happens to lie nearly along the line of sight to the star → Beta Andromedae. More specifically, it lies at an angular separation of seven arc-minutes. For this reason it is known also as → Mirach's Ghost. NGC 404 is in fact a → dwarf galaxy lying at a distance of about 10 million → light-years (3.07 ± 0.37 Mpc). NGC 404 harbors a low-luminosity → active galactic nucleus powered by the lowest-mass (< 150,000 Msun) central → massive black hole (Nyland et al., 2017, ApJ 845, 50).

NGC, → New General Catalogue.