Markarian's Chain of Galaxies
How many galaxies can you see in the picture? I count 20 or more as "easy" to see. This is only part of the chain, but this area of this sky has around 2,000 galaxies.
Starting from M84 on the lower left, you see big fuzzy M86 above right, with edge-on galaxies NGC 4402 below and NGC 4388 above left (and NGC 4378, 4425, and 4424 in the area. NGC 4436 and 4431 are towards the top of the frame). Further above right your "Nonet (NTC4438) and NGC 4435 aka "The Eyes. On to the right you see more of Markarian's Chain of galaxies, with NGC galaxies 4461, 4468, 4473, 4479, and 4477 shown.
M84, M86, and a host of other galaxies are present in this area between the constellations Leo, Coma Berenices, and Virgo.
Image details: 46 * 5 minutes or 3.8 hours total exposure, March 2009 from the Davis Mountains, TX, USA. Takahashi TOA 130 Telescope (a 5" APO refractor telescope with reducer), AP 900GTO mount, QHY8 CCD Camera. Other pictures from the camera are are here. Images processed using my Astronomy Image Processing Workflow.
APOD has excellent info on this feature here.
March 2009 Davis Mountains Images
