The Hubble Space Telescope can catch some dazzling gems sitting in the vastness of space, including this view of a galaxy some 69 million light-years away from Earth toward the constellation Eridanus (the River).

Hubble first spied the galaxy, dubbed NGC 1300, with its Advanced Camera for Surveys in September 2004 and took multiple exposures that astronomers ultimately assembled into one of the largest images ever made of a complete galaxy.

This high-resolution image pales when compared to the full, 4-foot by 8-foot image compiled by Hubble and released to the public this week during the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, California.

The sheer size of Hubble's NGC 1300 image allowed astronomers to detect fine structure details in the galaxy's arms, disk, bulge and nucleus, some which had never been seen before. Supergiant stars appear as blue and red objects in the spiral arms, and are accompanied by star clusters and star-forming regions. Intricate dust lanes spin fine structures across the galaxy's disk and bar, with numerous other galaxies apparent not only in the background of NGC 1300, but also through its densest regions.

NGC 1300's spiral structure spans about 3,300 light-years, with one light-year equal to the distance light travels in a year - about six trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). The galaxy is so wide, Hubble had to take two separate observations to encompass the outlying arms.

The giant, poster-sized version of this image can be found by clicking here. But be warned, it may be too large for some Internet browsers and computers.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA/ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).