A curious pair of galaxies

This colour composite image of Arp 261 was created from images obtained using the FORS2 instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. Located 2,600 m above sea level, in the mountains of the Atacama Desert, the Paranal Observatory enjoys some of the clearest and darkest skies on the whole planet. This image was created from images through blue, green, red and infrared filters and the total exposure time was 45 minutes. Further information can be found on eso0911.