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The ecliptic marks the apparent annual path of the Sun across the sky. Regulus, Leo's brightest member, is a young, blue-white star that is situated 70 light-years from the Earth. Regulus is actually a multiple system whose two faint companions are not visible to the unaided eye.

When we look toward Leo we are actually looking out above the obscuring plane of our galaxy. For this reason, many other distant galaxies can be seen through telescopes in this region of the sky. Just beneath the line joining Denebola, the lion's tail, and Regulus lie the galaxies M65, M66, M95 and M105. Like our own Milky Way, each is an island containing hundreds of billions of stars.

Coma Berenices, a constellation located northeast of the lion's tail, contains an open cluster of about 30 stars that are visible through binoculars. Situated beyond these stars is a group of over 1,000 galaxies. The Coma galaxy cluster lies about 290 million light-years from Earth and is receding from us at 6,700 km/sec. Coma Berenices also contains the north galactic pole (NGP), an imaginary point in space through which our galaxy's axis of rotation runs.

The Virgo galaxy cluster is located in the cusp of the constellation Virgo, southeast of the lion's tail. The Virgo cluster is situated about 50 million light-years from Earth and is receding at 1,000 km/sec. It contains over 2,500 galaxies."