Photo of the Week for April 12, 2019
Inspired by the April 10 press release featuring the first ever image of a black hole, Nepean, Ontario, astrophotographer Oleg Bouevitch headed into his backyard that night, aimed his telescope at the heart of the Virgo galaxy cluster, and photographed M87. The result is presented below.
M87 is positioned near the centre of the frame, but dozens of additional galaxies also show up. Most conspicuous is a curving row of galaxies in the upper right—part of an assemblage known as Markarian’s Chain. Although M87 is currently getting all the press, in fact every galaxy in this picture likely has a supermassive black hole at its centre—black holes are simply part of the architecture of all large galaxies.
