HAWK-I image of NGC 5247

This image shows NGC 5247, a grand design barred spiral galaxy, located 60–70 million light-years away. The galaxy lies face-on towards Earth, thus providing an excellent view of its pinwheel structure and multiple arms. It is in the zodiacal constellation of Virgo (the Maiden).

The image was made in infrared light with the HAWK-I camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile. HAWK-I is one of the most powerful infrared imagers in the world, and this is one of the sharpest and most detailed pictures of this galaxy ever taken from Earth. The filters used were Y (shown here in blue), J (in light blue), H (in green), and K (in red). The field of view of the image is about 6.4 arcminutes.