Markarian’s Chain is a filament of galaxies belonging to the Virgo Cluster which is at the center of the Virgo Supercluster which our Local Group – home to The Milky Way, Andromeda, Triangulum galaxies and many others – is a part of.

The galaxies forming the Markarian’s Chain are all 50-60 million light-years from Earth and most of them are moving together – this was discovered by astrophysicist Benjamin Markarian in early 1960s.

In a small telescope, it’s 10 brightest galaxies seem to form a curved chain of 8 pearls – 6 of them large enough to be recognised separately and 4 of them “melting together” to form the last 2 dots.

This image covers 1,9º x 1,3º of the night sky at a pixel scale of 0,814 arc-seconds per pixel.

Number of sub exposures: 68 x 1 min
Total Exposure Time: 01:08:00
Total Weighted Exposure Time: 00:58:28