Located in the southern constellation Antlia (The Air Pump) some 45 million light-years away, NGC 2997 is a near-face-on unbarred spiral galaxy. Active star-formation can be seen in the the bright knots of light in the spiral arms. As well, spiraling dust lanes are also evident.
Using both ESA/ESO/NASA provided software and Photoshop I combined four b&w images (courtesy ESO) taken in 1999 with their Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert of Chile and processed them to create this image.