Date: 2/21, 23, 28/2020
Description: 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 John Louis Emil Dreyer's New General Catalogue, published in 1888. It was ultimately named after the Armenian astrophysicist, Benjamin Markarian, who discovered their common motion in the early 1960s. Member galaxies include M84 (NGC 4374), M86 (NGC 4406), NGC 4477, NGC 4473, NGC 4461, NGC 4458, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435 [Ref: WikiPedia]
Sky Conditions: Clear skies with some high clouds, FWHM: 3.5 arc sec/pixel
Imaging: Exposure: Color de-bayered 5 hours (60 x 300 sec) at 1x1bin using Celestron LPF over three separate days
Guiding: AP 80mm guidescope with guide-camera (5sec guide-rate)
Equipment:
ZWO ASI 183 Color Pro -10 deg C
8” RASA at F2
Paramount ME Mount
SW: SkyX, PixIsight - calibration with darks, bias and color correction (weighted batch processing, auto-script merge and noise reduction)
Observatory site : Northern VA