Detail of a view towards the Great Attractor

This image shows the central region of the Great Attractor at the original resolution of the WFI. Note the strong warping of the galaxy to the left of the center, which may be caused by gravitational interaction with one or both of the bright galaxies that are seen above and below it. The field shown measures about 12 x 12 arcmin 2.

Five exposures each were made in blue (B-band filter; 5 x 300 sec), red (R-band filter; 5 x 180 sec) and near-infrared (narrow-band filter centered at 816 nm; 5 x 240 sec) light and combined into a false-colour composite by using blue, green, and red colour for the three images, respectively. A logarithmic intensity scale is used to better show the inner as well as the outer regions of the galaxies in this field.