Visible/infrared cross-fades of Messier 83

This video fades between the view of Messier 83 in visible light captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile and the new HAWK-I image taken in the infrared. In the infrared, the dust that obscures many stars becomes nearly transparent, making the spiral arms less dramatic but revealing a whole host of new stars that are otherwise invisible.