Large-scale structures behind the southern Milky Way from observations of partially obscured galaxies

Abstract

We report here on extragalactic large-scale structures uncovered by a deep optical survey for galaxies behind the southern Milky Way. Systematic visual inspection of the ESO/SRC-survey revealed over 10000 previously unknown galaxies in the region 265 to 340 degrees. With subsequently obtained redshifts of more than 10% of these galaxies, new structures across the Milky Way are unveiled, such as a filament at 2500 km per sec connecting to the Hydra and Antlia clusters, a shallow extended supercluster in Vela (6000 km per sec), and a nearby (4882 km per sec), very massive, rich Coma-like cluster which seems to constitute the previously unidentified centre of the Great Attractor. The innermost part of the Milky Way remains fully opaque. In this approximately 8 degree wide strip, the forthcoming blind HI survey with the multi-beam system at Parkes will provide the only tool to unveil this part of the extragalactic sky.