The Nearby Universe

Research area

The best places to study the full range of galaxy type are nearby galaxy clusters and groups. Using wide-field cameras on ground-based telescopes (CFHT/MegaCam and CTIO/DECam), we have been conducting deep surveys of the nearest groups and clusters. The Virgo cluster (pictured below) is the nearest cluster and the largest mass concentration within 35 Mpc, and is the target of the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS), a CFHT Large Program that received ~180 nights of telescope time to perform deep imaging (g'~26 mag) over 104 square degrees in four filters (u*g'i'z').

Figure 1. (Left) The full 104 square degree data set of the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS), which images the entire cluster within the virial radii of Virgo subclusters A (top, M87) and B (bottom, M49). (Right) A zoom-in of the Virgo core region around the cD galaxy, M87, that contains over 400 dwarf galaxies and 9000 detected globular clusters (not visible at this scale).