Galaxies are made of millions of stars. There are millions of galaxies in the universe. Galaxies are as varied as the stars that are in them. Here are some examples of the different types:

These are Spiral galaxies, Our galaxy the Milky Way is a galaxy of this type.

Sometimes a spiral galaxy will be edge on as seen from the earth, they look like this:

Elliptical Galaxies are like giant balls of stars. But you'd have to have a really big bat to hit them with. The galaxy below is M87, at the center of it there is a massive black hole gobbling up everything in the area. The photo on the left was taken by David Malin, one of the best astrophotographers this side of Rigel. Streaming into the black hole is a huge jet of gas, which can be seen in the largest telescopes. It's on the right.

If you're going to go out galaxy hunting one night you'll need at least a pair of binoculars. If you are out where it's really dark the Andromeda galaxy, seen below,  is visible to the naked eye. It's 2.2 million light years away.

There are literally thousands of galaxies visible if you have a telescope to do your viewing with. Find a dark spot and do some galaxy hunting! Think there's not a lot of galaxies to see? Look at this picture before you go.

This is just one small part of the sky. Happy Hunting!

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