NGC 1300 is a barred spiral galaxy located about 61 million light-years away in the constellationEridanus. The galaxy is about 110,000 light-years across (about the same size of the Milky Way). It is a member of the Eridanus Cluster, a cluster of 200 galaxies. It was discovered by John Herschel in 1835.

In the core of the larger spiral structure of NGC 1300, the nucleus shows a “grand-design” spiral structure that is about 3,300 light-years long. Only galaxies with large-scale bars appear to have these grand-design inner disks — a spiral within a spiral. Models suggest that the gas in a bar can be funneled inwards, and then spiral into the center through the grand-design disk, where it can potentially fuel a central supermassive black hole (SMBH). NGC 1300 is not known to have an active nucleus, indicating that its central black hole is not accreting matter.