Galaxy in the Great Attractor Field

This image displays a small area (about 2.4 x 2.4 arcmin 2) centered on a bright galaxy in the Great Attractor Field. The dark lane probably indicates that it has already cannibalized one or more of its companions. During the course of hundreds of millions of years or more, others are likely to suffer the same fate.

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.