Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Coma Cluster

You may need to zoom in on this image a bit. But if you look closely the majority of the 'stars' are not really stars at all. They are galaxies!


from Wikipedia:


The Coma Cluster (Abell 1656) is a large cluster of galaxies that contains over 1,000 identified galaxies.[2][3] Along with the Leo Cluster (Abell 1367), it is one of the two major clusters comprising the Coma Supercluster.[4] It is located in and takes its name from the constellation Coma Berenices.
The cluster's mean distance from Earth is 99 Mpc (321 million light years).[3][5][6] Its ten brightest spiral galaxies have apparent magnitudes of 12–14 that are observable with amateur telescopes larger than 20 cm.[citation needed] The central region is dominated by two giant elliptical galaxies: NGC 4874 and NGC 4889.[7] The cluster is within a few degrees of the north galactic pole on the sky. Most of the galaxies that inhabit the central portion of the Coma Cluster are ellipticals. Both dwarf, as well as giant ellipticals, are found in abundance in the Coma Cluster.[8]