The Fornax Cluster of galaxies

The Fornax Galaxy Cluster is one of the closest of such groupings beyond our Local Group of galaxies. This VISTA image was constructed from images taken through Z, J and Ks filters in the near-infrared part of the spectrum and has captured many of the cluster members in a single image. At the lower-right is the elegant barred-spiral galaxy NGC 1365 and to the left the big elliptical NGC 1399, surrounded by a swarm of faint globular clusters. The image is about 1 degree by 1.5 degrees in extent and the total exposure time was 25 minutes.