Chaos overhead – Markarian’s chain, a string of galaxies

This beautiful string of galaxies in the Virgo constellation has been overhead for couple of hours, early part of the night. The two bright ones are M84 (bottom) and M86. The pair of interacting galaxies are NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, also known as the Markarian’s eyes. The composition is result of 4 hour integration (UVIR Baader) across four nights, an hour each.

NASA’s photos of Markarian’s Chain is amazingly pretty (link), as are the Markarian’s eyes (link). While Messier had previously cataloged several of these galaxies, the Armenian astrophysicist, Benjamin Markarian identified that at least seven of them were moving coherently in the same direction.

To fully appreciate this portion of the sky, start with looking at the relative position of the large galaxies in Virgo constellation (link), specifically note the location of M49 (visually, it is the brightest galaxy in Virgo) and M84 (part of Markarian’s chain). Now look at the annotated Vera Rubin image (link) that includes M49 but not M84.

The frame that the telescope captured. Everything that is not a pinpoint in this image is a galaxy! The first is a cropped version of this image.

Written by locomotoring

May 11, 2026 at 9:52 am

Posted in Uncategorized

Locomotoring