The Antennae are one of the best examples of colliding galaxies in the sky. They sit about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Corvus. Two substantial spiral galaxies (NGC4038 and NGC4039) are well into the long process of merging to become one large elliptical galaxy. Massive bursts of star formation caused by the collision have created bright blue super star clusters, which are visible as bright knots in the two galaxies (especially the lower of the two, NGC4038). More of NGC4039's old yellowish core is still visible, and there's also glimpses of the tortured brown dust between the nucleii that's prominent in the famous Hubble images.

The antennae themselves are tidal tails - long streams of millions of mainly bluish stars that have been drawn out of each of the two galaxies by the gravitational interactions. Each tail is longer than the Milky way, at roughly 175,000 light-years long. The sky view of the two galaxies in the sky from a planet orbiting a star in one of these tails would be very unusual and spectacular. Other features of the gravitational dance are visible as shells of stars twisted by large, slow forces. Some much more distant groups of yellowish background galaxies decorate the scene.