NGC 660 is a peculiar and unique polar-ring galaxy located approximately 45 million light years from Earth in the Pisces constellation. It was probably formed when two galaxies collided a billion years ago. However, it may have first started as a disk galaxy that captured matter from a passing galaxy. This material could have, over time, become "strung out" to form a rotating ring.

The ring is not actually polar, but rather has an inclination from the plane of the host disk of approximately 45 degrees. The ring is 50,000 light-years across - much broader than the disk itself - and has a greater amount of gas and star formation than the host ring. This likely indicates a very violent formation. The polar ring contains objects numbering in the hundreds. Many of these are red and blue supergiant stars. The most recently created stars in the ring were just formed approximately 7 million years ago. This indicates that the formation of these stars has been a long process and is still occurring.

Late in 2012, this polar-ring galaxy produced an enormous outburst having a magnitude of approximately ten times brighter than a supernova explosion. The cause is not certain, but this event may have resulted from a tremendous jet being emenating from galaxy's central black hole. [Source: Wikipedia].

The image was captured with the venerable Meade 12"LX200, using my Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Astronomik's Luminance, Red, Green and Blue filters were used. All subs were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C. and 300s.

Image 2016 -- SGPro image capture software

Lum 300s: 76 subs (6.33 hr) on Oct 24th and 27th.

Red 300s: 30 subs (2.50 hr) on Oct 20th, 21st, 22nd and 24th.

Green 300s: 29 subs (2.42 hr) on Oct 20th, 21st and 22th.

Blue 300s: 30 subs (2.50 hr) on Oct, 21st, 22nd and 24th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th, 2013. Filter L was used to develop the Lum image. R, G and B were collected for the color mix. North is up. This is a slight crop due to image misalignment due to plate solving variations and dithering.

As per usual, I suspect the (now) fall's high humidity in combination with shooting over Interstate 35's lights probably causes the problematic internal reflections making for a noisy background.