When morning twilight came to the Paranal Observatory in Chile, astronomers Mark Neeser and Peter Barthel interrupted their search for faint quasars, billions of light-years away.
And just for a moment, they used Very Large Telescopes at the European Southern Observatory to appreciate the beauty of the nearby Universe.
of beautiful barred spiral galaxy NGC 613, a mere 65 million light-years away in the southern constellation Sculptor.
Over 100 thousand light-years across, NGC 613 seems to have more than its fair share of spiral arms laced with cosmic dust clouds and bright star forming regions near the ends of a dominant central bar.
Radio emission indicates the presence of a massive black hole at the center of NGC 613.
