ESO imaging survey provides targets for the VLT

This photo shows three views of a small field in the so-called EIS Patch-B. They were obtained during this survey in different colours: B - blue; V - green-yellow; I - near-infrared. At the centre is located a (candidate) cluster of galaxies at very large distance. This conclusion is based upon the different appearance of this cluster in the three frames: it is not seen in B; it is hardly visible in V and it is most obvious in I. This indicates that the galaxies in the cluster have very red colours. The effect is most likely due to high redshift (and therefore large distance) that has shifted the bulk of their emission from the visual to the near-infrared region of the spectrum. The other objects in the field — which are nearer — can be seen in all three frames.