Markarian's Chain

 A great Galaxy Season target for widefield setups

Those of us with shorter focal length, widefield setups can feel target starved during galaxy season. Galaxies, with a few exceptions, are often small targets, better suited for longer focal length telescopes. Markarian's Chain is a string of galaxies located in the constellation of Virgo, that makes an aesthetically pleasing target for telescopes with a wide field of view. My imagination sees this string of galaxies as a snake like creature with an oversized head sporting a "meh" expression. 

Markarian's chain captured from my backyard on May 15, 2023.

The chain of galaxies includes M86 and M84 as well as a pair of interacting galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known as The Eyes. Not sure why they are called The Eyes, but I see M86 and M84 as a pair of eyes. The prominent elliptical galaxy located in the lower left corner of the image is M87. Please refer to the annotated image below to identify the prominent galaxies contained in this field of view. Please note, this annotation was limited to NGC and IC catalogs, as the resulting annotated image would be overwhelming due to the number of galaxies in this field if other catalogs were included. 

Annotated image of Markarian's Chain. Note: annotation limited to NGC and IC catalogs.

The data for this image was captured on the night of May 15, 2023. The imaging session began at 9:52 PM and was completed at 2:21 AM on the morning of the 16th, when the target was lost to the trees. A total of 102 120 sec sub exposures were captured, of which 65 were used to produce the image. If become more discriminating about the exposures I use to produce images. I use the Blink process and the "SubframeSelector" process in PixInsight to remove exposures with undesirable characteristics (poor focus, eccentric stars, low signal weight, etc...) due to various factors like passing clouds. I have found being more discriminating about the individual subs for the image has been producing better results. This is my third attempt at processing this data. Since we have not had any good conditions for imaging since late May, I have had plenty of time to process data lurking in my hard drive.

What is it?

Markarian's Chain is a string of galaxies located in the constellation of Virgo that forms part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. The chain of galaxies is named after soviet astrophysicist, Benjamin Markarian, who discovered that at least seven of the galaxies in the chain move coherently. 

How big is it?

The field of view of this image is roughly 2.8 degrees by 1.9 degrees. 

How far is it?

The prominent galaxies in this image (M84, M86, and The Eyes) are located about 50 million light-years (50Mly) from Earth.

How to find it?

Unfortunately, as the publishing of this post, Markarian's Chain can be found low in the western sky. This target is best viewed during spring in the northern hemisphere. Markarian's Chain is located in the "bowl" of the constellation Virgo. Refer to the finder chart below. I use the two stars at the top of the bowl and Denebola, the star that marks the tail of Leo the Lion, to triangulate its position. 

Finding Chart for Markarian's Chain.

Image Details:

Capture Date:05/15/2023

Location: Eden, NY

Telescope: Explore Scientific ED80 Essential Series Air-Spaced Triplet Refractor

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Filter: None

Mount: Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro

Exposure: 65 exposures at 120 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 50 / -10°C each for a total exposure of 2.2 hours.

Software: NINA, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie