Location / Date

Zellerndorf, Nov/Dec 2012 - Sept/Oct 2013

Telescope / Mount / Guiding

2012: Skywatcher 10" Newtonian, ASA 2" Quattro Coma-Corrector+OAG (focal length: 1410mm)
Skywatcher NEQ6, Guiding with Lacerta Mgen

2013: ASA 10" Astrograph, ASA 2" Barlow Corrector 1.8x (focal length: 1620mm)
ASA DDM60, no Guiding

Camera / Exposure

Canon EOS 500Da
88 x 15min ISO 400 (total 22h)

Processing

Theli, Fitswork, PixInsight, Photoshop

Notes

NGC 660 lies in the constellation Pisces and is over 20 million light-years away. Its peculiar appearance marks it as a polar ring galaxy. A rare galaxy type, polar ring galaxies have a substantial population of stars, gas, and dust orbiting in rings nearly perpendicular to the plane of the galactic disk. The bizarre-looking configuration could have been caused by the chance capture of material from a passing galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris eventually strung out in a rotating ring.