HAWK-I image of NGC 2997

This image, NGC 2997, is a spiral galaxy roughly 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Antlia

(the Air Pump). NGC 2997 is the brightest member of a group of galaxies of the same name in the Local Supercluster of galaxies. Our own Local Group, of which the Milky Way is a member, is itself also part of the Local Supercluster.

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 green), H (in orange), and K (in red). The field of view of the image is about 6.4 arcminutes.