redshift astro
astrophotography blog / brian hitney

Markarian's Chain

galaxies

Markarian’s Chain (named after the astrophysicist who discovered their common motion) makes up part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies – a grouping of thousands of galaxies.

While the massive galaxy M87 (upper right) is not part of the chain, it was intentionally framed in this shot as it just fit within the field of view. When looking at the annotated image, it’s amazing to notice how many Messier and NGC galaxies are present –

– but when looking at the faint stuff – there are over 220 PGC galaxies in the image alone.

Resolution ........ 2.105 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 174.324 deg
Focal ............. 529.10 mm
Pixel size ........ 5.40 um
Field of view ..... 1d 51' 6.9" x 1d 23' 51.3"
Image center ...... RA: 12 28 09.686  Dec: +12 57 02.13