View allAll Photos Tagged VirgoCluster
Object: Markarian’s Chain – 2022
Markarian's Chain is a grouping of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster. When viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. At least seven galaxies in the chain appear to move in concert, although others appear to be positioned by chance.
Near the center of the chain appears the pair of interacting galaxies NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, about 50 million light-years away, known to some as Markarian's Eyes or simply "The Eyes".
Details:
- Acquisition Date: 4/29/2022 – 5/01/2022
- Location: Western Massachusetts
- Camera: QHY600M-PH @ -10°C w/CFW2-7
- Telescope: Astro-TECH AT130 with APM Riccardi APO Flattener 1.0x
- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100 w/GTO4
- Guide scope: Celestron Off Axis Guider
- Guide Camera: ASI174m mini
Filters:
Astrodon Gen II E Filters
Luminance: 30 x 300 sec (150 min)
Red: 27 x 300 sec (135 min)
Green: 15 x 300 sec (75 min)
Blue: 27 x 300 sec (135 min)
Total Exposure: 495 min. (8.25hr)
Processed in Pixinsight 1.8.9 and Adobe PS5
Object: Markarian’s Chain – 2022
Markarian's Chain is a grouping of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster. When viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. At least seven galaxies in the chain appear to move in concert, although others appear to be positioned by chance.
Near the center of the chain of there appear the pair of interacting galaxies NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, about 50 million light-years away, known to some as Markarian's Eyes or simply The Eyes
Details:
- Acquisition Date: 4/29/2022 – 5/01/2022
- Location: Western Massachusetts
- Camera: QHY600M-PH @ -10°C w/CFW2-7
- Telescope: Astro-TECH AT130 with APM Riccardi APO Flattener 1.0x
- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100 w/GTO4
- Guide scope: Celestron Off Axis Guider
- Guide Camera: ASI174m mini
Filters:
Astrodon Gen II E Filters
Luminance: 30 x 300 sec (150 min)
Red: 27 x 300 sec (135 min)
Green: 15 x 300 sec (75 min)
Blue: 27 x 300 sec (135 min)
Total Exposure: 495 min. (8.25hr)
Processed in Pixinsight 1.8.9 and Adobe PS5
A mosaic of two LRGB images of spiral galaxies M98 (NGC 4192) on the right and M99 (NGC 4254) on the left. Data taken over the nights of 2023-04-19 and 2023-04-20. Celestron Edge HD 925 at focal length 535 mm with Hyperstar; Atik 414-EX mono camera with Optolong CCD filters. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; stacking, registration, mosaic composition, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in GIMP.
Taken from my Bortle 8/9 backyard in Long Beach, CA
Well if you like galaxies in all shapes as sizes this will be something for you.
Following on from my recent Markarian's chain here is an extended look into the wider Virgo cluster.
A range of lesser seen galaxies including M89 with its delicate shells, M90, M88 and M91.
In fact, there are some many galaxies in this image it makes the brain hurt - I will put an annotated version up for you to see :)
Hope you enjoy, this area of the sky for some reason seems very difficult to process (well for me anyway) but it is a really nice area to look at purely out of interest.
Imaging telescope or lens: Officina Stellare Veloce RH 200 MKII Gus
Imaging camera: FLI MicroLine 8300 CCD-camera FLI
Mount: Paramount-ME
Software: Pixinsight 1.8
Filters: Astronomik Deep-Sky R Filter, Astronomik Deep-Sky B Filter, Astronomik Deep-Sky G Filter, Astronomik L2 Lum
Accessories: FLI Atlas, Starlight Xpress lodestar 2
Resolution: 6120x4395
Dates: Jan. 28, 2018, Feb. 11, 2018, Feb. 13, 2018, Feb. 14, 2018, Feb. 19, 2018, Feb. 21, 2018, Feb. 22, 2018, Feb. 23, 2018, Feb. 24, 2018
Frames:
Astronomik Deep-Sky B Filter: 51x600" bin 1x1
Astronomik Deep-Sky G Filter: 48x600" bin 1x1
Astronomik Deep-Sky R Filter: 59x600" bin 1x1
Astronomik L2 Lum: 100x600" bin 1x1
Locations: Image The Universe Remote Telescopes, Fregenal de la Sierra, Extremadura, Spain
At the center of this image is elliptical galaxy M85 (NGC 4382) in the Virgo Cluster. To its left is NGC 4394, a barred spiral galaxy that is also in the Virgo Cluster.
This was shot from my backyard in Long Beach, CA on the night of 2023-04-19. Clear nights have been hard to come by for the past few months. I used an Atik 414-EX monochrome camera with Optolong LRGB filters on a Celestron Edge HD 925 at 535 mm focal length with Hyperstar. Exposures were as follows:
L channel - 106 15 s exposures
R channel - 46 40 s exposures
G channel - 44 40 s exposures
B channel - 35 40 s exposures
Pre-processing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop
The two galaxies that are prominent in this image are elliptical galaxy M89 (lower left) and spiral galaxy M90 (upper right). They are both part of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. To the right of M90 is IC3583, an irregular galaxy that is only half the distance away as M90. There are also about 25 other galaxies in this image that are either smaller or more distant than the ones that stand out.
This is a stack of 43 3 min exposures taken from my backyard in Long Beach, CA. The telescope is a Celestron Edge HD 925 with a Hyperstar lens. The camera is an Atik 314L+ color CCD with a Baader light pollution filter. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; image registration, stacking, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
In this 2-panet mosaic of part of the much larger Virgo cluster, a host of galaxies including tidally disrupted spiral galaxy NGC 4428 (left) and elliptical galaxy M84 (right) surround the bright elliptical/lenticular galaxy M86 (near center).
Taken under dark skies near Goldendale, WA.
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 8" f/10
Reducer: 0.7x
Camera: QSI 683wsg
Mount: Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO
Integration: 35 minutes (7 x 5 min) each RGB
Post-Processing Software: PixInsight 1.8.8, PaintShop Pro
Markarian's Chain is a stretch of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster. When viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. Charles Messier first discovered two of the galaxies, M84 and M86, in 1781. The other galaxies seen in the chain were discovered by William Herschel and are now known primarily by their catalog numbers in Dreyer's New General Catalogue, published in 1888. The chain of galaxies was ultimately named after the Soviet astrophysicist, Benjamin Markarian, who discovered their common motion in the early 1960s. (Wiki)
Also included in this image (far left) is the spiral galaxy M88, located in the constellation Coma Berenices.
Rio Rancho NM Bortle 5 zone,
March 23-24, 2023
William Optics Redcat 51
ZWO 183mm pro
ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 Mini
ZWO ASI Air Pro
Sky-Watcher HEQ5
52 x 300s Red
48 x 300s Blue
48 x 300s Green
Darks Flats Dithering
Gain 111 at -10C
Processed in DSS, GraXpert, and PS
Taken from my home in Gérgal, Almería, Spain over 8 nights in January and February 2022.
A wide field view of the Virgo Cluster located in the constellation of Virgo and Coma Berenices. It is estimated that there are at least 1,300 galaxies in this region and possibly as many as 2,000.
On the left of the image is a curved chain of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain which contains near the centre, two interacting galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4438 known as Markarian's Eyes.
This was a project that I added at the end of my nebula imaging sessions due to the Milky Way being very low in the sky in the winter months and I needed a target that was higher in the sky early in the morning. My wide field telescope is not suited to imaging many galaxies so I decided to image a cluster of galaxies instead.
A region of the sky particularly rich in galaxies, known as the Virgo Cluster and including several prominent members catalogued long ago: M884, M86, M87, M88, M89, M90, and M91, in addition to numerous others smaller and fainter galaxies. The arc of galaxies on the right is sometimes called Markarian's Chain.
2x3 mosaic each tile consisting of up to 30 exposures of five minutes each. Explore Scientific ED102 102mm f/7 refractor, 0.8x reducer/flattener, ZWO ASI294MC camera, UV/IR cutoff filter, iOptron CEM25P mount, ASIAir controller. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, and Lightroom.
NGC 4535 (at the top) is a barred spiral galaxy also known as Copeland's Lost Galaxy. At the bottom of the image is NGC 4526, a lenticular galaxy where a Type Ia supernova was visible in 1994. The distances to these galaxies has been measured at 51 and 52 million light years, respectively (arxiv.org:1806.02900 and 1807.11493), making them members of the Virgo Cluster.
Shot with a Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with Hyperstar from my Bortle 8/9 backyard in Long Beach, CA. The camera was an Atik 314L+ color CCD with light pollution filter. This is a stack of 40 3 mn exposures. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, and processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
Data was collected on the morning of 2022-04-08.
马卡良星系链，由室女座中的一系列星系构成。从地球上看去，这些星系排成一条弧线，出现在这张照片的左下方。
上方偏左侧那个最大的星系，是室女座星系团中的M87，这也是我们邻近宇宙中最大的星系。去年人类拍摄到照片的超大黑洞，就位于它的核心。
画面右侧还有两个颜色偏蓝的旋涡星系，右上是M90，右下则是M88，它们也都是室女座星系团的成员。
M58 (in the upper left of the image) is a barred spiral galaxy with an active nucleus. It is classified as a low-luminosity Seyfert galaxy. There is a supermassive black hole at the center that has about 70 million times the mass of our Sun.
NGC 4564 is an elliptical galaxy just below and right of the center of the image. Unlike the other galaxies that stand out in this image, this one is not actively forming new stars.
NGC 4567 and 4568 are a pair of interacting spiral galaxies toward the bottom. This pair is sometimes called the Butterfly Galaxies. The dark molecular clouds in the spirals are colliding, which is triggering new star formation.
All of the more prominent galaxies in this picture are part of the Virgo cluster. They are located between 50 million to 60 million light years away. M58 is actually the most distant of the 4 mentioned above. A close inspection will show about 20 more galaxies that are even more distant.
Shot with a Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with HyperStar and an Atik 414-EX monochrome camera. Separate exposures were taken with RGB filters, as follows:
R: about 70 50s exposures
G: about 100 65s exposures
B: about 70 65s exposures
Preprocessing in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel composition, and initial processing in PixInsight; final processing in Photoshop.
Field of view is about 37' by 53'.
The last time I imaged Markarian's Chain was back in 2016 with my modified DSLR and was well over due for a revisit. After what seemed like months of cloudy nights I managed to image 3 objects over 4 nights. This is the last of object I took, the others are Leo Triplets and finishing of the Christmas Tree Nebula.
OBJECT DESCRIPTIONS:-
Markarian's Chain of galaxies forms part of the Virgo Cluster. This image contains numerous Galaxies arranged in a curve. These include:-
M84 (NGC 4374), M86 (NGC 4406), NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435.
The last pair of interacting Galaxies are also known as the Eyes Galaxies. These Galaxies are between 50 & 60 Million Light years away.
EQUIPMENT:-
Explore Scientific 102mm F7 APO Carbon
Focal Reducer: Explore Scientific 0.7
Mount: AZ-EQ6 GT
ZWO ASI1600mm-Cool cmos camera
Orion Mini Auto Guide
ZWO L,R,G,B Filters
Chip Temp Cooled to -15 degC
IMAGING DETAILS:-
Markarian's Chain (Virgo Cluster)
Gain 139 (Unit Gain)
50 Lum subs@120sec (1h 40min)
30 Red subs@120sec (1h)
30 Green subs@120sec (1h)
30 Blue subs@120sec (1h)
Total imaging Time 4h 40min
Dithering
20 Darks
20 Flats
PROCESSING/GUIDING SOFTWARE:-
N.I.N.A
PHD2
DSS
GraXpert AI
StarNet++
Siril
Affinity photo 2
This luminous orb is the galaxy NGC 4621, better known as Messier 59. As this latter moniker indicates, the galaxy was listed in the famous catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by French comet-hunter Charles Messier in 1779. However, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Koehler is credited with discovering the galaxy just days before Messier added it to his collection.
Modern observations show that Messier 59 is an elliptical galaxy, one of the three main kinds of galaxies along with spirals and irregulars. Ellipticals tend to be the most evolved of the trio, full of old, red stars and exhibiting little or no new star formation. Messier 59, however, bucks this trend somewhat; the galaxy does show signs of star formation, with some newborn stars residing within a disc near the core.
Located in the 2000-strong Virgo Cluster of galaxies within the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin), Messier 59 lies approximately 50 million light-years away from us. This image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Cote; CC BY 4.0
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
The light captured in this image, was emitted around the time that the Dinosaurs became extinct on Earth.
A wide-field mosaic of a section of Markarian's Chain, a chain of Galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Supercluster (a cluster of a several thousand Galaxies, 60 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Virgo). When viewed from Earth, the Galaxies lie along a curved line.
The Virgo Supercluster (Virgo SC) or the Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is a mass concentration of Galaxies containing the Virgo Cluster and Local Group, which in turn contains the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxies. At least 100 Galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of 33 megaparsecs (110 million light-years). The Virgo SC is one of about 10 million superclusters in the Observable Universe and is in the Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex, a Galaxy Filament.
A few quotes:
"There is an odd mannequin shape that is presented by the distribution of galaxies. This work has been done mainly by Margaret Geller with her collaborator John Huchra at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution. It's a little like soap bubbles in a bathtub or dishwashing detergent. The galaxies are on the surfaces of the bubbles. The insides of the bubbles seem to have no galaxies in them at all." - Carl Sagan - Cosmos - The Edge of Forever (S01E10).
The size and age of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home, the Earth." - Carl Sagan - Cosmos - The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean (S01E01).
About this image:
Imaged in LRGB over several sessions in July 2019 from the Southern Hemisphere.
Image Acquisition & Plate Solving:
SGP Mosaic and Framing Wizard.
PlaneWave PlateSolve 2 via SGP.
Integration time:
18 hours.
Processing:
Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,
and finished in Photoshop.
Astrometry Info:
Center RA, Dec: 187.055, 12.888
Center RA, hms: 12h 28m 13.184s
Center Dec, dms: +12° 53' 17.123"
Size: 3.26 x 2.5 deg
Radius: 2.054 deg
Pixel scale: 7.33 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: Up is 88.3 degrees E of N
View an Annotated Sky Chart of this image.
View this image in the WorldWideTelescope.
&creditsUrl=&ra=187.536744&dec=12.032357&x=1214.0&y=370.9&rotation=91.70&thumb=http://nova.astrometry.net/image/7121763){kind=link}
Flickr Explore:
Also see:
Photo usage and Copyright:
Medium-resolution photograph licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For High-resolution Royalty Free (RF) licensing, contact me via my site: Contact.
Martin
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Markarian's Chain is a string-like group of galaxies that forms part of the Virgo Cluster, located about 70 million light-years from Earth. It is called a "chain" because, when observed from Earth, the cluster appears arranged along a gently curved line. It is named after Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian, who discovered their shared motion in the early 1960s. The region includes multiple galaxies, mainly elliptical ones, among which the NGC 4435-4438 pair—nicknamed “The Eyes of Virgo”—stands out. The names of the main visible galaxies are shown in the outer frames.
The image was taken from Casalgrande, in the Po Valley—one of the most light-polluted areas in Europe—and required about 8 hours of exposure time.
Technical data
Lens: Nikon Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 (stopped down to f/4)
Imaging/guiding camera: ZWO ASI 2600 MC Duo
Mount: ZWO AM5N
Filter: IDAS LPS D2
Exposures: 230 x 120 seconds
Messier 84 or M84, also known as NGC 4374 is a member of a dynamic pairing with M86. A round giant elliptical galaxy some 80,000 light-years wide, M84 shines across 55 million light-years of space. It resides in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, the nearest of the large extragalactic populations. M84 is visually part of Markarian’s Chain, a string of eight galaxies that form a 1.5°-long line that shines like flying paper lanterns at the core of the Virgo Cluster. Armenian astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian discovered this feature in the 1960s, noting that these galaxies share a common motion through space. However, later observations have shown that M84 is not a dynamical member of the chain, as its motion does not jive with the rest.
Messier 86 (also known as M86 or NGC 4406) is a 9th-magnitude elliptical/lenticular galaxy at the core of the Virgo Cluster, lying only 17′ from M84. Messier discovered it together with M84, saying the two “nebulae” had the same appearance. On the surface, they do. With its smooth-looking face, M86, like M84, gets gradually fainter the further you look away from the core. And at a glance, M86 may appear only slightly larger than M84 through a small telescope. But this is an illusion created by the galaxy’s lower surface brightness. M86 is, in fact, twice the apparent diameter of M84 and is slightly more elliptical. M86’s 400 billion stars span a whopping 135,000 light-years.
Reference: www.astronomy.com/astronomy-for-beginners/101-must-see-co...
Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81x60 seconds guided exposures, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: May 26, 2023. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).
M100 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, surrounding by several satellite galaxies, all of them members of the Virgo Cluster.
This image was taken over a couple of clear nights from Seattle, WA in March of 2020.
Telescope: Celestron EdgeHD 8" @ f/7
Camera: QSI 683wsg
Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1
Integration: 1.6 hours (20 x 5 mins) each of RGB
A part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, between the constellations of Virgo and Leo.
Featuring Markarian's Chain, a bunch of Messier objects, and very near three dozen galaxies visible galaxies in all.
202 x 40s + 77 x 35s
ISO1600
Olympus Pen-F Digital
Askar FMA180
Tracked using a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Mini
Shot from my balcony in the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal.
The Virgo Cluster of galaxies has over 1,300 member galaxies in it. This small part of the cluster easily shows over 30 galaxies. A slightly magnified view may reveal 50 or more. The sequence of images was taken with an Explore Scientific ES80 APO refractor telescope and a Canon T7i DSLR camera. It’s a very compact setup. Exposures: 39 x 90s each at ISO 3200. No guiding was used. The mount was a Celestron Advanced VX. A simple programmable remote camera trigger fired off the exposures while I struggled to stay awake on the overnight hobby.
The image stack was stacked in Deep Sky Stacker software and the resulting TIFF, without effects applied, was then processed in Pixinsight software. Finishing touches were put on with Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud software which was used to render the image to the JPG format.
Right of center in this image is elliptical galaxy M49 (NGC 4472). It is part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Other galaxies appearing in this image are NGC 4488 and NGC 4492 (along the left edge, at the top and middle, respectively), and below M49 are NGC 4470 and NGC 4466.
This is a stack of 38 3 min exposures taken with an Atik 314L+ color CCD with Baader light pollution filter through a Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with HyperStar. Subframes were preprocessed in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop.
North is at the top and west is at the right in this image.
The striking spiral galaxy featured in this week’s Hubble Picture of the Week is Messier 90 (M90, also NGC 4569), located in the constellation Virgo. In 2019, an image of M90 was released using data from the older Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 — data taken in 1994 soon after the camera’s installation. That image has a distinctive stair-step pattern due to the layout of WFPC2’s sensors. WFPC2 was replaced in 2010 by the Wide Field Camera 3, and Hubble used WFC3 when it turned its aperture to Messier 90 again in 2019 and 2023. The resulting data was processed to create this stunning new image, providing a much fuller view of the galaxy’s dusty disc, its gaseous halo and its bright core.
The inner regions of M90’s disc are sites of star formation, which is highlighted here by red H-alpha light from nebulae, but this is absent in the rest of the galaxy. M90 sits among the galaxies of the relatively nearby Virgo Cluster, and the course of its orbit took it on a path near the cluster’s centre about three hundred million years ago. The density of gas in the inner cluster weighed on M90 like a strong headwind, stripping enormous quantities of gas from the galaxy and creating the diffuse halo that can be seen around it here. This gas is no longer available for M90 to form new stars with, and it will eventually fade as a spiral galaxy as a result.
M90 is located 55 million light-years from Earth, but it’s one of the very few galaxies getting closer to us. Its orbit through the Virgo cluster has accelerated it so much that it’s in the process of escaping the cluster entirely, and by happenstance it’s moving in our direction — other galaxies in the Virgo cluster have been measured at similar speeds, but in the opposite direction. Over the coming billions of years, we will be treated to a yet better view of M90 while it evolves into a lenticular galaxy.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy. It has a bright core with light spilling out, and its disc is filled with thick clumps of dark reddish dust, which swirls around the galaxy following its rotation. Parts of the disc are speckled with blue, showing brighter and hotter stars. A halo of faintly-lit gas wraps around the galaxy, extending beyond the edges of the image.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team; CC BY 4.0
There's a few galaxies in this. Apart from all the chunky ones, there are loads of little fuzzy ones as well. Cool. Not quite Hubble Ultra Deep Field, but not bad from my back garden :)
This is part of the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies, which comprises as many as 2000 galaxies. Our Local Group, which includes us (the Milky Way) and Andromeda, is in the suburbs of the Virgo Supercluster.
This is just over 7 hours of ten minute subs for luminance and 2.5 hours of 5 minute subs for the RGB, what there is of it!
ED80 with 0.85 focal reducer
HEQ5 Pro, belt driven
Cooled mono Canon 450D, CLS CCD filter for Luminance
Modded Canon 500D for RGB
APT, PHD, CDC, EQMOD
Stacked in DSS, processed in CS5
This is Markarian's Chain, a stretch of galaxies found in the constellation of Virgo, which viewed from Earth lie along a smoothly curved line. Charles Messier first discovered the two brightest of the galaxies, M84 and M86, in 1781.
Just to the left of centre can be seen a pair of interacting galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, which about 50 million light-years away, and sometimes referred to as ‘Markarian's Eyes’.
Markarian’s chain lies in a galaxy rich region of the sky known as the Virgo cluster, which may contain up to 2000 galaxies. If you are looking at this via a monitor then try clicking on the link to the full resolution image below, its amazing how many galaxies can be seen.
Hot gas detected by Chandra is being pulled away from this elliptical galaxy as it moves through a galaxy cluster at about 3 million miles per hour. X-rays from Chandra (purple) and XMM-Newton (blue); optical images from Digitized Sky Survey (red, green, and blue) and Palomar (red, green, and blue)
Visual Description:
This composite image features approximately one dozen galaxies, set against a black backdrop dotted with tiny specks of light. Some of the galaxies resemble glowing white dots. Other galaxies resemble disks, or have glowing outer rings. These galaxies are part of a galaxy cluster containing over a thousand galaxies. To our right of center is a large white and pink dot surrounded by a neon purple streak. This is the galaxy M86 traveling through the cluster at about three million miles per hour. The neon purple streak represents hot gas detected with Chandra. This hot gas is being pulled from the traveling galaxy as it collides with hot gas in the cluster.
Credit: X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO; (XMM) ESA; H-alpha: NoirLab/NSF/KPNO; Optical: SDSS; CalTech/Palomar; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major and K. Arcand
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASAChandra #NASA #ESA
A group of galaxies that form part of the Virgo Cluster.
5h26m total integration (20x180s each R,G, 22x180s B, 30x300s L). Alcalalí, Spain 19/5-24/5/2017.
APM TMB 152 F8 LZOS, 10 Micron GM2000HPS, QSI6120wsg8
This week, an image of the broad and sweeping spiral galaxy NGC 4731 is the Hubble Picture of the Week. This galaxy lies among the galaxies of the Virgo cluster, in the constellation Virgo, and is located 43 million light-years from Earth. This highly detailed image was created using six different filters. The abundance of colour illustrates the galaxy's billowing clouds of gas, dark dust bands, bright pink star-forming regions and, most obviously, the long, glowing bar with trailing arms.
Barred spiral galaxies outnumber both regular spirals and elliptical galaxies put together, numbering around 60% of all galaxies. The visible bar structure is a result of orbits of stars and gas in the galaxy lining up, forming a dense region that individual stars move in and out of over time. This is the same process that maintains a galaxy's spiral arms, but it is somewhat more mysterious for bars: spiral galaxies seem to form bars in their centres as they mature, accounting for the large number of bars we see today, but can also lose them later on as the accumulated mass along the bar grows unstable. The orbital patterns and the gravitational interactions within a galaxy that sustain the bar also transport matter and energy into it, fuelling star formation. Indeed, the observing programme studying NGC 4731 seeks to investigate this flow of matter in galaxies.
Beyond the bar, the spiral arms of NGC 4731 stretch out far past the confines of this close-in Hubble view. The galaxy’s elongated arms are thought to result from gravitational interactions with other, nearby galaxies in the Virgo cluster.
[Image Description: A close-in view of a barred spiral galaxy. The bright, glowing bar crosses the centre of the galaxy, with spiral arms curving away from its ends and continuing out of view. It’s surrounded by bright patches of light where stars are forming, as well as dark lines of dust. The galaxy’s clouds of gas spread out from the arms and bar, giving way to a dark background with some foreground stars and small, distant galaxies.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
A mostly dark frame with some faint fuzzy dots, flanked by a copy of the same with some incomprehensible labels? This is far from beeing the most beautiful image I ever published, but it easily qualifies as the most interesting! However, it certainly needs quite some explanation:
The image shows a section of sky (roughly 8.5° x 6.5°) in the border area of the constellations Leo, Virgo and Coma Berenices that is home to the northern part of the famous Virgo Galaxy Cluster. This cluster harbors roughly 1300 galaxies and forms the heart of the larger Virgo Supercluster, of which our Milky Way is an outlying member.
Just right of and below the center of the image is Markarian's Chain, a stretch of galaxies that is called a chain because, when viewed from Earth, the galaxies lie along a smoothly curved line. It is named after the Armenian astrophysicist, B. E. Markarian, who discovered their common motion in the early 1960s.
Markarian's Chain was my primary target for this image. As I was running late that evening, I decided not to set up my telescope, but to shoot with my 200mm lens from a tripod equipped with a simple iOptron SkyTracker. Not the most impressive setup and, considering that I was imaging from my light polluted backyard (#5 on the Bortle scale) with a too short focal length, I was not expecting much of a result.
After setting up, I just let the camera shoot away and went for my well-deserved nights rest. The next day, after sorting out the frames with clouds, aircraft or satellite trails, I ended up with 290 shots of 30s each, summing up to 2h25min of usable data. After stacking and processing these frames, I got the above image.
First, I was happy that my primary target was visible at all, but then I started to notice many small galaxies in the image. I therefore started to scrutinize the image systematically. You can see the result in the copy on the right side, where I was able to identify more than 150 galaxies (yellow labels).
Now I was truly impressed. I remembered the Hubble Deep Filed (HDF), showing thousands of galaxies in the early universe and started to think of my image as my personal deep field (PDF)…LOL
The imaged galaxies are roughly 50-60 million lightyears away from earth. While this is a huge distance (it means the light my camera caught was emitted just after the dinosaurs were extinct), it still is a rather small distance on the cosmological scale of the Hubble Deep field.
I started wondering if there are more distant objects in my image. After a dedicated search, I really found some exotic and much more distant objects (red labels). The most distant of them is a quasar named Q1227+120. It has a measured redshift of z=2.458. You can translate this into a cosmological distance of mindboggling 19.2 billion lightyears! The light of this quasar was emitted 11.1 billion years ago. That’s 4/5th of the time that has elapsed since the big bang!
Of course, you can find many images of similar objects taken with giant, professional telescopes. But when I realized that I had imaged an object that almost lies “at the edge of the universe” from a tripod in my backyard, with a simple DSLR camera and a 200mm lens, I was absolutely flabbergasted!
A word of caution:
Even in giant telescopes, these quasars (Quasi Stellar Objects) are just tiny, star-like dots of light. In my image, they are at the very limit of discernibility and you will have to download and open the image in full resolution to see them. But they are there – trust me!
Acknowledgement:
My star charts and planetarium programs were unable to go deep enough for the data of the image.
For my "research" I had to get access to professional quality data and found these in the "Aladin sky atlas" developed at CDS, Strasbourg Observatory, France → 2000A&AS..143...33B and 2014ASPC..485..277B.
Aladin is a free interactive sky atlas, allowing the user to visualize digitized astronomical images or full surveys, superimpose entries from astronomical catalogues or databases, and interactively access related data and information from the Simbad database, the VizieR service and other archives for all known astronomical objects in the field. It was developed for professional astronomers, but it is also a great toy for the interested amateur.
OK, it's not the Webb, but in 2017 I managed to capture not less than 45 galaxies with my Takahashi FSQ-106 telescope from my home observatory in light-polluted central Maryland. There are a few unlabeled faint galaxies that my astrometry software did not identify. Magnify and look for smudges that aren't circles (brighter stars) or points (dimmer stars).
The spiral galaxy M91 was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. It was the last of the nine objects (M84–M92) that Messier added to his catalog on a single night in March. Located 60 million light-years from Earth with an apparent magnitude of only 11, M91 is one of the faintest objects in Messier’s catalog. In a dark sky, the galaxy can be spotted with medium-sized telescopes in the constellation Coma Berenices most easily during May.
M91 is one of over a thousand galaxies that make up the Virgo cluster — a group of galaxies that are gravitationally bound to one another. It is an anemic galaxy, meaning that it has a lower rate of star formation compared to other spiral galaxies.
This image of M91 combines ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths. It was taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 as part of an effort to explore the connections between young stars and cold gas in a variety of nearby galaxies.
For more information about Hubble’s observations of M91, see: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1998/news-1998-10.html
For Hubble's Messier catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit: www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-s-messier-catalog
Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Lee (California Institute of Technology); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Very dusty/cloudy sky conditions.
Taken with EOS 6D and TS 80/500 Triplet APO on H-EQ5 mount. 47*90 sek. ISO 800
This extent contains eleven Messier objects (M 58, 84, 86-91, 98-100) and many other galaxies. Markarian's Chain is the string of galaxies in the center. My favorite is the Coma Pinwheel Galaxy (M 99) in the center of the upper right quadrant, with its interesting coma shape.
Acquisition details: Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 102 x 30 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing with Astro Pixel Processor and GIMP, taken on Feb. 27, 2020 under Bortle 3/4 skies.
Messiers 98 and 99 in the Virgo cluster. Imaged 4 and 5 Feb 2025, 10hrs Lum and 6hrs each RGB. As well as M98 and M99 the image contains 10 NGC/IC galaxies 133 PGC galaxies and many more background galaxies and galaxy clusters
A peek into part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Our main target was The Coma Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as The Virgo Cluster Pinwheel, Messier 99, M99, or NGC 4254). This is the grand design spiral galaxy on the right side of the image. This galaxy is approximately 50 million light-years away from the Milky Way in the constellation Coma Berenices. It's a target we hadn't imaged before and another Messier object to tick off the list. However, I was more intrigued by the two galaxies on the left side of the image because they appear to be interacting (more on them shortly). M99 has a tail extending from one of its arms only part of which is visible here. This extended region, known as VIRGOHI21, is thought to contain a large quantity of dark matter and the relative lack of stars in it has led to speculation that it may be one of the first detected dark galaxies. An alternative proposition is that VIRGOHI21 is the result of a collision with either the galaxy NGC 4192 (not shown here) or NGC 4262 (shown in the upper central part of the image). This collision would have occurred some 280 million years ago.
The two galaxies on the left are NGC 4302, an edge-on spiral galaxy located about 55 million light-years away, and NGC 4298, a flocculent spiral galaxy about 53 million light-years away. Both of these galaxies also reside in Coma Berenices. The lopsided, asymmetrical distribution of stars in NGC 4298 suggests a possible interaction with NGC 4302. There are numerous galaxies visible in this shot, some are little more than faint dots (like IC 3177 at the bottom of the image), and some are more clearly identifiable as galaxies (such as IC 781 at very the top of the image, and NGC 4262 a little below it).
This session was also a further test of the new Arduino-based tracking and guiding system that Ben is developing following the dramatic demise of the mount's motor controllers that temporarily halted our observing and imaging sessions. That project is coming along nicely and guiding was nominal.
31/03/2021
040 x 300-second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
040 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 3 hours and 20 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity and Photoshop
Equipment:
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI120MC
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro with anti-dew heater
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Optolong L-Pro filter
Located approximately 47 million light-years away, M88 is a spiral galaxy with well-defined and symmetrical arms. Although it is a member of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, it appears in the neighboring constellation of Coma Berenices.
M88 contains an active galactic nucleus, meaning the central region of the galaxy is more luminous than the rest of the galaxy. At the galaxy’s core resides a supermassive black hole estimated to be 100 million times more massive than our Sun. M88 contains around 400 billion stars and is traveling away from our galaxy.
Charles Messier discovered M88 in 1781 on the same night that he discovered eight other Messier objects. As one of the brighter Messier galaxies, it can be observed with a pair of large binoculars from a dark location under good viewing conditions. Smaller telescopes will reveal an elongated object with a brighter core, while larger telescopes will unveil further details, such as a more defined core. M88 has a magnitude of 9.5 and is best observed in May.
This Hubble observation of the core of M88 combines visible and infrared observations obtained by the Wide Field Camera 3, and captures swirling bands of dark dust as well as clusters of stars. It was taken as part of a study of galactic bulges ― the central group of stars surrounding a spiral galaxy’s core ― focusing on the process of galaxy evolution and the growth of supermassive back holes.
For Hubble's Messier catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit: www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-s-messier-catalog
Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Erwin (Max-Planck-Institut fur extraterrestrische Physik); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Just before the Event Horizon Telescope started its imaging run on the supermassive black hole at the center of M87, I was imaging the same region of the sky with my Celestron Edge HD 925. The galaxy in question, M87, is in the lower left corner of this image. It is the closest Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG) to us, and it shows a relativistic jet when you take enough data to capture that feature.
The other galaxies that cross the top part of this picture are known as Markarian's Chain -- all of the prominent galaxies in this picture are part of the Virgo Cluster. M87 and the rest of the Virgo Cluster galaxies are about 55 million light years away. At that distance, if there was a civilization looking back at Earth, the image they would currently get is of a planet whose biosphere had just rebounded from the Chicxulub impact. However, any such image is exceedingly unlikely. On the full size scale of this image (1684x2408 pixels), the supermassive black hole would be 16 millionths of a pixel in size. That black hole is roughly 3 million times the diameter of the Earth. Using a radio telescope the size of the Earth, we were just able to resolve the black hole.
This image is a mosaic of 4 separate tiles. Each of those is a stack of 4 minute exposures. Images were shot with an Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD. Preprocessing was done in Nebulosity. The stacking, initial processing, and mosaic composition was done in PixInsight. Final processing was done in PixInsight and PS CS 5.1.
The image center (J2000) is at:
RA 12h 29m 9s
DEC +13° 0' 17"
The image spans 1° 10' by 1° 40'.
There are 14 galaxies with NGC designations, and about 100 galaxies in total visible in the picture.
Part of the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies including M98, M99 and M100. 10 hrs through GT71ASI2600 enhanced obver the main galaxies with high res data
A cropped version of the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946). This image is comprised of data from two separate sessions a year apart. There were no reported supernovae in the galaxy between the two dates. The data from 2020 was closely framed enough for the more recent data to be added to it giving an exposure time of 5 hours and 40 minutes. The long exposure time certainly brought out more detail. However, the stars on the earlier set of images are a little misshapen and that affected the final image.
The Fireworks Galaxy (also known as NGC 6946) is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, located 25.2 million light-years away from Earth between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. It is part of the Virgo Supercluster but not part of the Local Group. On Wikipedia, there is a debate about the diameter of NGC 6946 with the article claiming it's 40,000 light-years in diameter, while a professional researcher in extragalactic astrophysics claims the diameter is around 70,000 light-years. I measured it using the given distance (which isn't being debated) and found it to be 66,590 light-years, close to the astrophysicist's measurement. NGC 6946 contains roughly half the number of stars as the Milky Way. It is heavily obscured by interstellar matter due to its location close to the galactic plane of the Milky Way, making it challenging to image in detail. Due to its prodigious star formation, it has been classified as an active starburst galaxy. Ten supernovae have been observed in NGC 6946 in the 20th and early 21st century, the most recent occurring in May 2017. This is about ten times the rate observed in our Milky Way galaxy leading some to refer to it as the Fireworks Galaxy.
29/05/2020
038 x 300-second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
040 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
16/07/2021
030 x 300-second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
035 x flat frames
100 x bias frames
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 5 hours and 40 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity and Photoshop
Equipment:
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI120MC
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro with anti-dew heater
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Optolong L-Pro filter
This is from a stack of 17 exposures that were meant to be part of a larger mosaic. I have some of that mosaic assembled in another image. I thought I might be able to pull out the relativistic jet, but it appears I need different exposure settings. NO SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE FOR ME!
Images were shot with a Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and an Atik 314L+ one shot color CCD. Initial preprocessing with darks and flats in Nebulosity; stacking and initial processing in PixInsight; final processing in PS CS 5.1.
Image center (J2000) is at:
RA 12h 30m 14s
DEC +12° 36' 46"
🌌 "The Grand Spiral of M100" 🌌
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Spinning serenely in the heart of the Virgo Cluster, Messier 100 is one of the most majestic grand design spiral galaxies known to us.
Also cataloged as NGC 4321, this face-on beauty showcases tightly wound spiral arms, glowing with star-forming regions and interlaced with dark dust lanes. At approximately 55 million light-years from Earth, M100 spans over 100,000 light-years — rivaling the Milky Way in size and elegance. Its well-defined structure and active star-forming activity make it a key object of study in understanding galactic evolution.
Galaxy Type: Grand Design Spiral (SAB(s)bc)
Constellation: Coma Berenices
Distance: ~55 million light-years
Apparent Magnitude: 10.1
Coordinates: RA 12h22m54s, Dec +15°49′20″
Lights: 125x300" (LRGB)
Telescope: Planewave CDK24
Camera: QHY 600M
Filters: LRGB Astrodon
Processed: Pixinsight
Date: 31/03/2025
#M100 #Messier100 #SpiralGalaxy #DeepSkyObjects #Astrophotography #GalacticBeauty #VirgoCluster #NGC4321 #CosmosWonder #AstronomyArt #SpaceLovers #AstroPhotographyDaily #UniverseRevealed
M90 is a bright, beautiful spiral galaxy situated in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Located in the constellation Virgo, this galaxy is approximately 59 million light-years away from Earth and has a magnitude of 9.5. M90 is believed to be breaking away from the rest of the galaxies in the Virgo cluster and is one of the few galaxies traveling toward our Milky Way galaxy, not away.
Charles Messier found M90 in 1781 while looking at other galaxies in the Virgo cluster. M90 contains approximately a trillion stars and a thousand globular clusters. With the exception of the inner disk region, the galaxy's arms contain very little star formation. Interactions with neighboring galaxies likely stripped away the gas and material that M90 needs to have active star formation in its outer regions. In the future, M90 is expected to evolve into a lenticular galaxy, which is a galaxy that has qualities of both a spiral and an elliptical galaxy.
This Hubble observation was taken in infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light with the telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Less than half of the galaxy is visible in this image. Astronomers used these Hubble observations to help study the properties of galactic bulges and the cores of nearby galaxies.
The best time to view M90 is in May. It can be seen with binoculars in a clear, dark sky, and telescopes (especially larger ones) will begin to reveal more details of the galaxy, such as its arms and bright core.
Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, and V. Rubin (Carnegie Institution of Washington), D. Maoz (Tel Aviv University/Wise Observatory), and D. Fisher (University of Maryland)
This new Hubble image shows galaxy cluster Abell 1689. It combines both visible and infrared data from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) with a combined exposure time of over 34 hours (image on left over 13 hours, image on right over 20 hours) to reveal this patch of sky in greater and striking detail than in previous observations.
More information: www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1317a/
Credit:
Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee (NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)
At the eastern edge of where the Virgo Cluster appears on our sky are these two elliptical galaxies, M59 (on the right) and M60 (on the left). Because they are part of a cluster, there are many other galaxies in the same field of view. These include the spiral, NGC 4647, which appears through the outer regions of M60. Toward the top is NGC 4641, and NGC 4637 and 4638 overlap toward the bottom of this picture.
This is a stack of 18 4 minute guided exposures through a Celestron Edge HD 9.25" at f/2.3 with HyperStar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD. Initial processing in Nebulosity; stacking and processing in PixInsight; final touches in PS CS 5.1.
The center (J2000) of the image is at
RA 12h 42m 43s
DEC +11° 43' 5"
The image spans a region 42' x 57'.
The unusual galaxy NGC 4388, found in the constellation Virgo, is classified as a spiral, but shows some of the features of an elliptical galaxy as well. Because of its bright nucleus, the galaxy is one of the brighter members of the large, gravitationally bound collection of over 1,300 galaxies called the Virgo cluster. Its outer regions are smooth and featureless, resembling an elliptical, but the nearly edge-on galaxy also shows two remarkably dusty arms. Within the arms, speckles of bright blue mark the locations of young stars, indicating that NGC 4388 has hosted recent bursts of star formation.
The galaxy is located about 65 million light-years away — about 10 million light-years farther than the center of the Virgo cluster.
For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1649a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Elliptical galaxy NGC 4660 is one of a hundred galaxies imaged by Hubble that are members of the nearest large galaxy cluster to Earth, the Virgo Cluster.
This large galaxy survey was part of an investigation into the number and distribution of globular star clusters that surround galaxies. Globular clusters orbit the center of galaxies in a way that is reminiscent of cometary orbits within the solar system, circling in from every direction and angle. They typically contain hundreds of thousands of old stars. Our Milky Way Galaxy hosts approximately 150 such clusters.
NGC 4660 contains 205 globular clusters, a typical number of globular clusters for its size and brightness. The survey found evidence that globulars are more likely to form in dense areas of galaxy clusters, where star birth occurs at a rapid rate, instead of uniformly from galaxy to galaxy.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/image/2385/news_release/2008-30
Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Peng (Peking University, Beijing)