Early spring means the start of 'Galaxy Season' for amateur astronomers, as it is when a region of
the sky near the constellation Leo that is rich in galaxies first becomes visible in late evening
skies. One of the brighter galaxies in this area is known as M87, the 87th object on Charles
Messier's list of "things that are not comets". (more info on the M109 image). This photograph
is of a region near M87, which is just outside the frame to the left. How many galaxies can you
count? Anything that is not a sharp pinpoint is a galaxy....although stars closer to the edge of
the photo are distorted and elongated. This is an artifact of the type of telescope used to take
the image, a short focal ratio reflecting telescope. The distortion can be mostly eliminated with
an optical accessory known as a 'coma corrector'. Said accessory is on my short list of astronomy
items to buy soon. This region of sky is home to the 'Virgo Supercluster', a collection of groups of
galaxies and clusters of groups, including our own Local Group containing the Milky Way and
Andromeda galaxies. If our galaxy is a house, our Local Group is a block, relatively nearby
groups comprise a city, clusters of groups a state and the supercluster the entire country.


There are -millions- of superclusters in the universe.