Markarian’s Chain

After imaging the galaxy chain with the 200 telelens, at f/2.8, I turned the f/5 telescope to it. Not surprisingly, I registered way less light – also given the lack of guiding at the longer focal limiting the length of the exposures. I remember a discussion on the field with fellow amateur astronomers, about how objects are named, seemingly arbitrarily – however, many of the members of this chain are physically linked, not just a chance alignment, mostly, and it was an astronomer named Markarian who measured their motion. Member galaxies include the two bright ellipticals, M84, M86  and some other NGC members: NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435.

(tovább…)