Markarian’s Eyes (NGC4438 and NGC4435)
The interacting 'Eyes Galaxies' in the constellation of Virgo are catalogued as NGC4438 (left) and NGC4435 (right). The larger of the pair was most likely a spiral galaxy, but became deformed when it collided with its neighbour. At 52 million light years away, these are the most distant deep sky objects I have captured.
The image above was nominated as a ‘Top Pick’ on the Astrobin site. The ‘Eyes’ are part of a sequence of galaxies know as ‘Markarian’s Chain’, which you can see in the four-panel mosaic below.
Total integration: 18hrs 15mins
Luminance 142 x 300
Red 27 x 300
Blue 29 x 300
Green 23 x 300
There’s more to this target than the fifteen or so galaxies that are easily visible in Markarian’s Chain.
If you ever want to see how many galaxies you can capture in one image, you could do a lot worse than pointing your telescope towards this region of Virgo. How many galaxies did I capture here? There are over a hundred. You can see them annotated with PGC and NGC catalogue references below.
I needed to create a four-panel mosaic in order to capture the chain’s full spread. It’s fair to say that this image probably doesn’t really jump out at you and wouldn’t ‘pop’ on Instagram. Apart from the ‘Eyes’, the galaxies don’t have particularly interesting structures. The appeal for me is the cascading nature of the galaxies and what’s hiding in there initially unseen.
To enhance the fainter galaxies, the total integrated exposure time was 48hrs 10mins. My longest ever.
Telescope: SkyWatcher 120 ED Pro,Camera: ATIK 460EX. Filters: Red, Green, Blue, Hydrogen Alpha.
Shot over three months in Bortle 4.
Five-minute subframes comprising 48hrs 10mins integrated exposure.
