Derby and District Astronomical Society



Messier 84 (NGC 4374)

Elliptical Galaxy in Virgo
RA 12h 25m 06s  Dec +12° 53' 00"

[Messier Index]


The following image shows Markarian's Chain, a string of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. The image was created with data taken by Chris Callaway on the 14th, 15th and 16th April 2021 from Coalville. M84 is the prominent elliptical galaxy at the right hand end of the chain as seen in this picture. M84 has an almost spherical appearance though, and the bright elliptical galaxy M86 lies to the left of it. Other members of the chain mostly have NGC designations and an annotated image is provided below Chris' picture to aid in identification. The bright elliptical galaxy M87 lies to the left of the image. The image comprises 10 x 10 min subs of Red, Green and Blue. Equipment was a Takahashi 106, the camera was an Atik 16200 with Atik filter wheel and filters, the mount was a Paramount MyT. The images were stacked in Astroart with further processing taking place in Photoshop and PixInsight.  Image Credit: Chris Callaway.




Elliptical galaxy M84 lies near the top edge of this image of the Virgo Cluster by Adrian Brown, taken on the night of the 3rd April 2006. The picture was created from eleven 5 minute exposures taken with an ATK16HR camera and Astronomik LPR filter through an 80ED refractor. Adrian comments that the Moon created fairly bright sky background gradients and that he removed these via Russell Crowman's GradientXTerminator plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Elliptical galaxy M86 lies at the centre of the picture. These and other members of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies are labelled in an annotated version of the image below. Image Credit: Adrian Brown.




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