This is a long focal length view of a portion of Markarian's chain of galaxies in Virgo. The large elliptical galaxy at lower right is M86. It is Hubble Class E3 because it is slightly elongated rather than spherical. On the left side of the image are the interacting galaxies NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known as "The Eyes". The edge on galaxy NGC 4402 is visible at upper right and other distant galaxies are scattered throughout the image.
Image Data:
Telescope/Mount: Celestron Compustar C14 with Starizona LF reducer/corrector (f/7.2).
Camera: SBIG STL 11000 with Baader Planetarium L,R,G,B filters.
SBIG AO-L Adaptive Optics at 3.0 Hz.
Location: Pommier Observatory, Portland, Oregon, USA
Dates: 2016-05-06 through 2016-05-12.
Exposures: L:R:G:B:=320:60:60:60= 8 hours 15 minutes total exposure.
See additional astrophotographs at www.rodpommier.com