'Head' of Markarian's Chain - Moana Project

[Vroobel]

Hi.  

Here's what my Markarian's Chain might look like if I spend 9+ hours on it instead of... 2.5 hours like last time. Astrophotography boredom has made me reach out again for the shared data from the Moana project, this time it's a piece of the Virgo galaxy cluster.

This small patch of sky contains two large elliptical galaxies M86 and M84, as well as a lot of smaller (more distant?) ones and an equally large number of spiral galaxies, the three largest of which are NGC 4388, NGC 4402 and NGC 4413. The entire cluster contains about 1300 identified galaxies, but there could be up to 2000. StarXterminator treated most of this smallest galactic 'plankton' as stars, which can be seen by analyzing the 'combined' and 'starless' versions.

 

 

Edited August 25 by Vroobel

[WolfieGlos]

Superb, and nice detail in NGC 4388, 4402 and 4413! Even M86 has details you don't usually see.

[Vroobel]

Thank you 😊

The details come from the 10" OTA of the Moana Project, mine is only working on the data. 🙂