Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Virgo (Vir)  ·  Contains:  HD107888  ·  HD108915  ·  IC 3258  ·  IC 3280  ·  IC 3303  ·  IC 3344  ·  IC 3349  ·  IC 3355  ·  IC 3363  ·  IC 3382  ·  IC 3388  ·  IC 3393  ·  M 84  ·  M 86  ·  M 87  ·  NGC 4374  ·  NGC 4387  ·  NGC 4388  ·  NGC 4402  ·  NGC 4406  ·  NGC 4407  ·  NGC 4413  ·  NGC 4425  ·  NGC 4435  ·  NGC 4438  ·  NGC 4458  ·  NGC 4461  ·  NGC 4473  ·  NGC 4477  ·  NGC 4479  ·  And 3 more.
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Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
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Markarian's Chain

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
Powered byPixInsight

Markarian's Chain

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Description

Markarian's Chain is a stretch of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster. When viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. Charles Messier first discovered two of the galaxies, M84 and M86, in 1781. The other galaxies seen in the chain were discovered by William Herschel and are now known primarily by their catalog numbers in John Louis Emil Dreyer's New General Catalogue, published in 1888. It was ultimately named after the Soviet astrophysicist, Benjamin Markarian, who discovered their common motion in the early 1960s. Member galaxies include M84 (NGC 4374), M86 (NGC 4406), NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435. It is located at RA 12h 27m and Dec +13° 10′.
~ Wikipedia


This was acquired over 4 nights in March. I tried to get as much luminance as possible, edging out colors, somewhat, so that I could crank on  the detail. I had to fight a bit to get the blues to come out in NGC 4438 - hopefully that's not overdone.

Addendum: There's a point where we need to stop collecting luminance, and we're clearly past that. So let's keep going and see what happens...

I've added 822 more minutes of luminance data. When I pixel-peep, I'm starting to resolve a lot more smaller detail. Since I currently only have wide field scopes and it's galaxy season, I may keep pushing this to the limits of ludicrousness.

Comments

Revisions

  • Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
    Original
  • Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
    B
  • Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
    C
  • Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
    D
  • Final
    Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42
    E

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

Markarian's Chain, Ginungagap42