There are many geometries of galaxies including the spiral
galaxy characteristic of our own Milky Way. In the remarkable
deep space photograph made by the Hubble Space Telescope, every
visible object except for the foreground stars is another
galaxy. The image is a composite of 342 images taken over a
period of 10 days with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on
December 18-28, 1995. With an average exposure on the order of
30 minutes, that amounts to about 170 hours of exposure. NASA
compares the field of view with that of a dime at 75 feet. The
camera was directed almost perpendicular to the galactic plane
to get a field of view as clear of foreground stars as possible.
The NASA illustration at left shows the location in the
constellation Ursa Major.