Home > Galaxies > NGC 660
Object NGC 660
Description

NGC 660 is a small unique galaxy, located over 40 million light-years away.  NGC 660’s 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 strongly tilted from 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.

Image
Scope Explore Scientific 127ed APO refractor
Camera ST2000XCM
Mount Losmandy G11
Filters
Guiding St-i through a Zenithstar 80mm refractor
Exposure Info 13 x 15 minutes for 3.25 hours total exposure time
Date November 5, 2018
Copyright Photo copyright Thomas Kerns, Beluga Lake Observatory