 The blue and orange stars in this faint galaxy, NGC 2188, sparkle in this image. Although the galaxy appears at first glance to consist solely of a narrow band of stars, it is classified by astronomers as a barred spiral galaxy. It appears this way, from our viewpoint on Earth, as the center of the spiral arms of the galaxy are tilted away from us, making only the very narrow outer edge of the galaxy visible. The true shape of the galaxy was identified by studying the distribution of the stars in the inner central bulge and outer disk, and by observing the stars' colors.