Image Description and Details : Reworking of a previous photo highlighting the NFI that characterizes the cluster of the Virgin.
The IFN (Integrated Flux Nebulae) are huge systems of very faint and faint filaments nebulae predominantly not illuminated belonging to the high Galactic latitudes of the Milky Way.
The most extensive system of this type extends along all the northern constellations of the northern celestial hemisphere reaching even the Polar star.
These nebulae have in common the fact that they are not illuminated by a single star but by all the stars of the Milky Way in the vicinity.
Their visibility is conventionally divided between very Bright (those close to M81 and M82), Medium, Faint (weak, as in the case of the Markarian's chain) and dim (poor).
The IFN present in the Markarian cluster is however rather surprising both for its distance from the galactic plane and for its relative brightness although defined as very poor in the details.

Copyright: Giambattista Rizzo