This image is featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day - Anemic Spiral NGC 4921 from Hubble

NGC 4921 - this version was processed by me exposing some interesting features close to galaxy core, which were less visible in original version, including spirals of dust in-flowing towards central black hole and few backdrop galaxies close to central region.

From treasures of Hubble Space Telescope, a very deep version of very unusual galaxy NGC 4921 along with a spectacular backdrop of more distant galaxies, located nearby Coma Cluster of galaxies. NGC 4921 is estimated to be 320 million light years distant from us.

NGC 4921 is one of the rare spirals in Coma cluster, it is an example of an "anaemic spiral" where the normal vigorous star formation that creates a spiral galaxy’s familiar bright arms is much less intense. As a result there is just a delicate swirl of dust in a ring around the galaxy, accompanied by some bright young blue stars that are clearly separated out by Hubble’s sharp vision. Much of the pale spiral structure in the outer parts of the galaxy is unusually smooth and gives the whole galaxy the ghostly look of a vast translucent jellyfish.

The long exposure times and sharp vision of Hubble also allowed it to not just image NGC 4921 in exquisite detail but also to see far beyond into the distant Universe. All around, and even through the galaxy itself, thousands of much more remote galaxies of all shapes, sizes and colours are visible. Many have the spotty and ragged appearance of galaxies at a time before the familiar division into spirals and ellipticals had become established.

Based on HST Legacy Archive raw data and original work as published here: https://spacetelescope.org/news/heic0901

See also https://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic0901c/

© NASA/ESA/Kem Cook (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA), Leo Shatz

Special thanks to Mr. Kem Cook for allowing me to use his work for creating this slightly different version.

NGC 4921 (HST)