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| Markarian's Chain of Galaxies image by PJ Singh (paramsach). (CC) |
Markarian’s Chain is a curved line of galaxies starting in the constellation Virgo and straying into Coma Berenices. Many of them can be seen in backyard telescopes, including the Messier galaxies M84, M86, and M87, as well as the interacting galaxies known as “The Eyes,” NGC 4435 and NGC 4438. The group is a favorite target for amateur astronomers venturing into the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
The group was named after Benjamin Markarian, an Armenian astrophysicist who discovered that at least seven of the galaxies have a common motion through space. This chain is part of the Virgo Cluster, which is the closest galaxy cluster to our own Local Group, centered about 50 to 70 million light years away. The Virgo Cluster contains at least 2,000 galaxies.
See this Sky & Telescope article for a chart and directions for navigating to Markarian’s Chain.
See Messier-objects.com for more information on the individual galaxies and close up images.
The following stereoscopic pairs, derived from the images above, illustrate the relative distances of the various galaxies in the chain. INSTRUCTIONS on how to see the depth in these images. South is up.
Click on images for larger scale to read labels.
PARALLEL VIEW:
With labels:
CROSS VIEW:
With labels:
Data:
Markarian's Chain
Galaxy Dist. (MLY) Mag