ShaRA team, taken from Rio Hurtado, Chile

The Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/9) are one of the most famous examples of interacting galaxies. In 1972, Alar and Jüri Toomre became the first researchers to use computers to simulate interactions between galaxies; their success in reproducing the Antennae's spectacular tidal tails helped convince astronomers that galaxies do, in fact, merge. This image comprises 17.7 hours of exposure on a 1-meter telescope in the Atacama Desert. The final image is a composite of the members' individual processing efforts, weighted by a vote among the 21 team members.