A Search for a Halo around NGC 3877 with a Charge Coupled Detector.

An account is given of the Fairchild charge-coupled device used as an astronomical detector. The properties of the device, its applicability, and its particular problems are discussed with special emphasis on the noise and spatial flatness of the quantum efficiency. An attempt is made to detect a giant halo around the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 3877. Deep pictures were taken with a cooled charge-coupled detector in five colors from 550 nm to 1000 nm. At 950 nm, the luminosity outside of the disk is (1.5 + or - 1.8)% (1 standard deviation) of the luminosity ratio in the halo is 66 superscript + infinity and subscript -36 times that of the disk if the halo is as massive as the one suggested by Ostriker and Peebles to stabilize the disk.