This spectacular image of the large spiral galaxy NGC 1232 was obtained on September 21, 1998 by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope located in Paranal, Chile.

It is based on three exposures in ultra-violet, blue and red light, respectively. The colours of the different regions are well visible: the central areas contain older stars of reddish color, while the spiral arms are populated by young, blue stars and many star-forming regions. Note the distorted companion galaxy on the left side of the picture, shaped like the greek letter "theta".

NGC 1232 is located 20-degrees south of the celestial equator, in the constellation Eridanus (The River). The distance is about 100 million light-years, but the excellent optical quality of the Very Large Telescope and its Focal Reducer and Spectrograph (FORS) allows us to see an incredible wealth of details. This was the first light image for the VLT with the FORS activated. The galaxy is about twice the size of the Milky Way galaxy.