Well-known for its similarity to the Milky Way, looking at NGC 6744 is kind of like looking into a cosmic mirror. We will almost certainly never know what our own galaxy looks like from afar, but we can look across the void and try to find something very similar.

Just like we see here, The Milky Way is known to have a central bar full of older, yellower stars, and a bulge. Some say the bulge is peanut-shaped, but I am sure it's more of an X, though I can see how it could also be described as a peanut. I have noted the X feature in the cores of a few other galaxies, and while it seems to be a fairly common morphology, I think it's only visible when viewed edge-on, so we can't see it here.

Moving out from the core, dusty lanes and pink nebulas of star-formation are also evident. When given a wider field of view, two arms a little more than vaguely defined can be seen. Numerous spurs and disconnects give it a halfway chaotic or fluffy, flocculent appearance.

I was gathering a few resources and references here and there to attempt an illustration of the Milky Way and Andromeda paired together from some distant vantage point when I discovered this galaxy was indeed in the Hubble archive. Not only that, but it's got a fantastic set of filters to work with and is part of the wonderful Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) which is chock full of intimate views of a variety of galaxies.

This image is possible thanks to the following two proposals:

LEGUS: Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey - HST Proposal 13364

H-alpha LEGUS: Unveiling the Interplay Between Stars, Star Clusters, and Ionized Gas - HST Proposal 13773

Note: Data for this image can be downloaded from the HLA, but the processing is better if you download it from this page: archive.stsci.edu/prepds/legus/dataproducts-public.html

The F657N data is not on the LEGUS page and must be obtained from the HLA as of this writing.

Red: WFC3/UVIS F657N + WFC3/UVIS F814W Green: WFC3/UVIS F555W Blue: WFC3/UVIS F275W + WFC3/UVIS F336W + WFC3/UVIS F438W