Benjamin Markarian

Benjamin Markarian (Armenian Բենիամին Մարգարյան; Russian Вениамин Егишевич Маркарян / Veniamin Jegischewitsch Margaryan, born 29 November 1913 in Schulawer, today Schahumjan, Georgia, † September 29, 1985, in the English transcription Markarian, in some scientific works incorrectly also Makarian ) was a Armenian astrophysicist.

Markarian worked since its foundation in 1946 the Byurakan Observatory and worked on theories of star formation, galaxy clusters and superclusters. It dealt generally with stellar associations and wrote the first systematic catalog of O- associations. For this work he received in 1950 along with Viktor Hambarzumjan the Stalin Prize.

In the 1960s, he watched closely a group of galaxies with active nuclei, which are particularly bright, blue light with a high UV continuum from the center leave ( Seyfert galaxies, quasars and blazars ). He took a few hundred of these objects to one catalog, which is now known as Markarian catalog and comprises about 1500 objects. The galaxies are now known as Markarian galaxies.

In the 1970s, he observed several galaxies of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, which have received the name Markarjan'sche chain.