The Local Group of Galaxies
This is an attempt to visualize the appearance of
the Local Group of galaxies. The galaxies are shown in
supergalactic cartesian
coordinate system. The horizontal axis is SGX and vertical axis SGY,
which means the image shows the
supergalactic plane. Units are in kilo
parsecs.
The third dimension is depicted by the size and colour of the galaxies.
The smaller and lighter in colour the galaxy is the further away it is.
Therefore the largest and darkest circles are the ones closest to the viewer.
True sizes of galaxies are so small that most galaxies would be too small to
show at all in this image.
The image shows also three rings centred on the origin of the
supergalactic coordinate system (i.e. the solar system). The rings indicate
various distances from the origin. There is another similar ring
centred on the Andromeda Galaxy.
If you compare this image with the true 3D
image, you will see that the true image shows the
Local Group from a direction that is to the upper left in this
image.