NGC 660, Polar-Ring Galaxy

NGC 660 is a peculiar and unique polar-ring galaxy located approximately 45 million light-years from Earth in the Pisces constellation. NGC 660 is classified as a "polar ring galaxy," meaning that it has a belt of gas and stars around its center that it ripped from a near neighbor during a clash about one billion years ago. (NASA)

Unfortunately, NGC 660’s polar ring cannot be seen in this image, but the image has plenty of other features that make it of interest to astronomers – its central bulge is strangely off-kilter and, perhaps more intriguingly, it is thought to harbor exceptionally large amounts of dark matter. (NASA)

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: Rio Hurtado Valley, Chile

Telescope: Planewave CDK24

Aperture: 610 mm (24 inches), f/6.5

Focal Length: 3962 mm

Camera: QHY 600M Pro CMOS

Filters: LRGB

Total Exposure: 1 hour 0 minutes

Image Processing:

PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator (RC Astro);

Adobe Photoshop 25.12.4;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.0.1

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.