The orientation of galaxies in the Local Supercluster

The method of investigating the orientation of galaxy rotation axes in the Local Supercluster introduced by Jaaniste & Saar, which takes into consideration both galaxy position angle and inclination, has been applied to a sample of 1275 galaxies. Statistical analysis of the distribution of the angles of rotation axes to the Local Supercluster plane shows that the distribution of galaxy planes is anisotropic. Galaxy planes tend to be perpendicular to the Local Supercluster plane. It is shown that such a result depends crucially on galaxies seen ‘face-on’, whose distribution is different from that of galaxies seen ‘edge-on’. The projections of galaxy rotation axes in the Local Supercluster plane tend to point toward the Virgo Cluster centre, but this effect is weak. We also discuss the reasons why our results disagree with the conclusions of previous workers.