Bode's Galaxy

The large spiral on the right is M81, better known as Bode's Galaxy. The thin, edge-on streak at the left is its neighbor M82, the Cigar Galaxy, so this photograph managed to catch two very different galaxies in the same field.

M81 is about 11.6 million light-years away, yet its bright core and spiral structure still show up through a small telescope. M82 is farther left in the frame and looks more chaotic because its interaction with M81 helped trigger intense star formation.

I like this image because it gives the empty-looking background some scale. Nearly every point is a star in our own galaxy, while the two soft shapes are entire galaxies far beyond it.