[Lvas] Markarian's Chain

[roger ivester]

Fred,

 

Some pretty incredible observing reports. Thank you so much for the kind words and remarks. I am honored and elated by your successes. 

 

Your notes and sketches are superb. I could not wait to forward to some of my special observing friends here on the east coast, and other.

 

Hopefully I can get everything together and issue Part 2..."observers notes and contributions" by no later than Wednesday or Thursday of the coming week. I am very excited about this report. 

 

My congratulations to you Fred, on a fine job.

 

Best regards to all....Roger Ivester 

 


 
 


 


From: rayworth1969 at hotmail.com
To: lvas at lvlug.org
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:37:17 -0500
Subject: [Lvas] Markarian's Chain



All,
 
My final input for Roger's observing project is to see if I could see all nine galaxies aroud M-84 and M-86, which is a large part of Markarian's Chain in Virgo, the realm of galaxies.
 
Virgo was high enough in the sky to take a crack at it, and with a little zap of my green laser finder, I had this group in the field of view in an instant.
 
I had no trouble at all seeing all nine galaxies in the field, and because of this observing project, I saw that ninth one for the first time, only because I knew it was there.
 
NGC-4387 is magnitude 13, and considering the night, it was by far the faintest galaxy I saw all night. If I hadn't known it was there, I would have missed it. In fact, several other people looked at the group and only counted 8. I don't feel bad missing it so many times before!
 
I used a 26mm Q-70 eyepiece from Orion. It has a 70 degree field, and despite a fishbowl effect at the edges, I had no problem seeing even the galaxies at the edges. Of course, I moved around a bit to catch each one in the center of the field, but to satisfy the observing challenge, I DID see all 9 at once in the field.
 
All of the galaxies, even M-84 and M-86 were featureless. No mottling or any detail at all, but they were all definite faint fuzzies and all had distinct shapes. The most fascinating of the group, to me, was NGC-4388, an edge-on spiral. It was a nice, though faint large streak, and out sized and outclassed the similar NGC-4402.
 
This is the stuff I live for! Seeing nine galaxies at once, and being able to positively identify every one of them is a real thrill.
 
Attached is my requisite crummy drawing, but it should give you an idea of what you will see if you have enough aperture.
 
Fred
 



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