NGC 521 is a barred spiral galaxy seen face on 227 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus.
With an estimated diameter of 130,000 light years it is larger than the Milky Way.
The galaxy has a prominent bar and pronounced bulge. The spiral arms are extended and relatively tight, they are populated by numerous young blue stars.
A dust circle is clearly visible in the central area. The nucleus is classified as low luminosity active with an emission level around 100 times less than that of a normal seyfert type galaxy.
The galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center.
The background field contains numerous distant galaxies.
Imaged in LRGB on my Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image acquisition and processing: Mike Selby