Markarian's Chain : Galaxy cluster in Virgo

Markarian's Chain is a wonderful string of galaxies in Virgo. The largest and brightest galaxies on the right side are M 86 and M 84.

 

Photograph Information
Date	03.13.2010
Location	Monument Rocks, Kansas
Telescope	AP130 @ f6 w/field flattener
Camera	Canon 5D Mark II, unmodified
Exposure	Stack of 16, 9 minute exposures at ISO 800
Notes	28°F, 99%rh, average transparency, average seeing. RAW conversion, registration and stacking in DeepSkyStacker. Processing in Photoshop CS2

For the first time I tried dithering between every exposure using a script to control PHD. Worked well but I still had very minor guiding oscillations in RA. Need to work on that. Total of 21 exposures taken but worsening transparency and seeing towards morning. This resulted in DeepSkyStacker grading out 5 images resulting in 16 exposures stacked for a total exposure length of 2 hours 24 minutes.