Instrument

12.5" RCOS @  ~f/9 (2880 mm fl) at 0.64 arcsec/pixel. Shown at 1.78 and 1.28 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ FW8 filter wheel, AstroDon Gen-2 Filters

Acquisition Data

12/24/2011 to 1/14/2012 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCD Commander & CCDSoft, AOL guided.

Exposure

eXcalibrator RGB ratios are 1.00, 0.95 & 1.11

Software & Processing Notes

• CCDSoft, CCDStack, PixInsight & Photoshop CS6.

• eXcalibrator v4.30 for (g:r) color balancing, using 49 stars from the SDSS-DR9 database.

• CCDBand-Aid to repair KAI-11000M vertical bars.

• CCDStack to calibrate all sub exposures, register and stack the color and create the RGB image.

• PixInsight processing includes registering and stacking the luminance, gradient repair, non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation and HDRMultiscaleTransform to  enhance the detail of the galaxy

• PhotoShop for the final touch up.

• Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

North is to the bottom.

NGC 660 is a polar ring galaxy in the constellation Pisces and is about 25 million light years from Earth. These types of galaxies typically have an outer ring of gas and stars that rotates over the poles. Polar rings are thought to form when two galaxies interact with each other. The ring may have been formed from material that was stripped away from a passing galaxy. Another possibility is that a smaller galaxy collided with NGC 660 and formed the ring.