Panoramic view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the distribution of galaxies beyond the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way" class="extiw" title="w:Milky Way">Milky Way</a>. The image is derived from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2MASS" class="extiw" title="w:2MASS">2MASS Extended Source Catalog (XSC)</a>—more than 1.5 million galaxies, and the Point Source Catalog (PSC)--nearly 0.5 billion Milky Way stars. The galaxies are color coded by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/redshift" class="extiw" title="w:redshift">redshift</a> (numbers in parentheses) obtained from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppsala_General_Catalogue" class="extiw" title="w:Uppsala General Catalogue">UGC</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard-Smithsonian_Center_for_Astrophysics" class="extiw" title="w:Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics">CfA</a>, Tully NBGC, LCRS, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2dF_Galaxy_Redshift_Survey" class="extiw" title="w:2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey">2dF</a>, 6dFGS, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloan_Digital_Sky_Survey" class="extiw" title="w:Sloan Digital Sky Survey">SDSS</a> surveys (and from various observations compiled by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA/IPAC_Extragalactic_Database" class="extiw" title="w:NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database">NASA Extragalactic Database</a>), or photo-metrically deduced from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_band#Infrared_astronomy_K_band" class="extiw" title="w:K band">K band</a> (2.2 μm). Blue/purple are the nearest sources (z &lt; 0.01); green are at moderate distances (0.01 &lt; z &lt; 0.04) and red are the most distant sources that 2MASS resolves (0.04 &lt; z &lt; 0.1). The map is projected with an equal area Aitoff in the Galactic system (Milky Way at center).
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_Processing_and_Analysis_Center" class="extiw" title="w:Infrared Processing and Analysis Center">IPAC</a>/Caltech, by Thomas Jarrett
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/jarrett/papers/LSS/">"Large Scale Structure in the Local Universe: The 2MASS Galaxy Catalog"</a>, Jarrett, T.H. 2004, PASA, 21, 396