Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Constructed from exposures made by the WFI in December 1998, this picture has been cropped from the full field to emphasize the galaxy and contrast adjusted to follow the graceful, winding arms and dramatic dust lanes of this photogenic island universe . Relatively bright foreground stars produce the sharp vertical streaks seen here while higher resolution versions of the image show intriguing, faint, background galaxies and likely globular star clusters associated with NGC 253 . Two faint satellite trails are also visible. NGC 253, an Sc type spiral , is about 8 million light-years away in the southern constellation Sculptor.
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