North Central Kansas Astronomical Society

Markarian's Chain in Virgo

Image aquired by Todd K. Tuttle 05/11/2026
This remarkable string of galaxies in Virgo is one of the night sky's most impressive galaxy clusters. The "chain" includes M84, M86, NGC 4388 and NGC 4387, which comprise the Great Celstial Face and the left "eye brow" NGC 4404. Then going up the chain to the left, the pair NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, know as Copeland's Eyes, or "The Eye's. Then on to the next pair, NGC 4458, NGC 4461. Up the curve to NGC 4473. Then finally on to NGC 4477. The average distant to these galaxies is a whopping 50 Million Light years! This image was aquired with a Dwarf 3 smart telescope from a light polluted backyard. The image is a composite of stacked images and processed in the Dwarf Labs app. Some minor contrast was applied in GiMP.

Great Links:

New Astronomy Project - An astrophotography journey from a light polluted site...
NCKAS AllSky Camera Dome - An Allsky camera that captures the sky 24/7.
Cloudy Nights - Great site for equipment un-biased reviews
Light Pollution maps around the world and by year.
Super Image Map of all 110 Messier Objects from The Arcturus Observatory web site by Cometman.
Listing and links of all 110 Messier Objects from APOD (Astonomy Picture of the Day).
The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
International Dark Sky Association

*Unless otherwise noted all images are from the STScI Digitized Sky Survey.

Messier Marathon

The North Central Kansas Astronomical Society participates in yearly Messier Marathons. We'll have our progress posted on our Messier Marathon site Messier site. Internet provided by NCKCN, and Cunningham Fiber