The Eyes — Galaxy in Virgo

NGC 4438 is a large, highly distorted galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, one half of the interacting pair popularly called 'The Eyes' (the other half being NGC 4435). The pair lies about 50 million light-years away in Coma Berenices at the heart of Markarian's Chain, the famous curving line of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster core. NGC 4438 has been badly tidally shredded — long tails, warped dust lanes, and H-alpha filaments stretching tens of thousands of light-years tell of a close past encounter, most likely with nearby M86. Its partner NGC 4435 is more compact and undisturbed.

One of the best galaxy pairs in the Virgo cluster to start a 'galaxy hop' through Markarian's Chain. In a 4-inch telescope at 80-100x the two Eyes sit close together in the same field — a matched pair of fuzzy oval glows — with NGC 4438 slightly larger, dimmer, and more elongated, and NGC 4435 smaller and brighter. An 8-inch scope reveals the asymmetry and warped edge of NGC 4438 on good nights. Use M86 (about half a degree west) as the starting hop. Best observed March through June.

Both members of the pair were discovered by Charles Messier on April 8, 1781, on the same night he cataloged many of the Virgo Cluster galaxies — though Messier did not include them in his final catalog. William Herschel independently cataloged them a few years later. The dramatic gaseous bridges and filaments connecting NGC 4438 to M86 were revealed only in deep H-alpha imaging in 2008, showing the encounter happened roughly 100 million years ago.