This paper provides an update to the review on extragalactic large-scale
structures uncovered in the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA) by Kraan-Korteweg & Lahav
2000, in particular in the Great Attractor region. Emphasis is given to the
penetration of the ZOA with the in 2003 released NIR 2MASX Catalog. The
distribution is little affected by the foreground dust. Galaxies can be
identified to extinction levels of over A(B) < 10m except in the wider Galactic
Bulge region (see Fig. 9) where star density is a strong delimiting factor. The
shape of the NIR-ZOA is quite asymmetric due to Galactic features such as
spiral arms and the Bulge, something that should not be ignored when using NIR
samples for studies such as dipole determinations.
Results are presented from the deep blind HI ZOA survey performed with the
Multibeam Receiver at the Parkes telescope (v < 12700km/s). The distribution of
the roughly one thousand discovered spiral galaxies in the optically and NIR
impenetratable part of the ZOA clearly depict the prominence of the Norma
Supercluster. With the optically identified galaxies in the ZOA, a picture
emerges that bears a striking resemblance to the Coma cluster in the Great
Wall: the rich Norma cluster (ACO 3627) lies within a great-wall like structure
that can be traced at the redshift range of the cluster over 90dg on the sky,
with two foreground filaments - reminiscent of the legs in the famous stick man
- that merge in an overdensity at slightly lower redshifts around the radio
galaxy PKS 1343-601 (see Figs. 14 & 16). (abridged)Comment: Invited Review at the joint conference of the Czech Astron. Society
and the Astron. Gesellschaft. To appear in Reviews in Modern Astronomy 18, on
``From Cosmological Structures to the Milky Way'', ed. S. Roeser, 30pages, 16
ps-figures. Full resolution gzipped ps-version (16Mb) available at
http://mensa.ast.uct.ac.za/~kraan/AGreview/AGreview.ps.g