NGC 660 in the constellation of Pisces is an unusual galaxy – a Polar ring galaxy, in which an outer ring of gas and stars rotates over the poles of the galaxy. It is believed to have been formed by two galaxies colliding together a billion or so years ago or from the capture of material from a passing galaxy. At approx. 44 million light years away it is the largest most distant galaxy I have tried to image and my most challenging project so far, requiring over 20 hours of data over 6 nights on my 8" SCT, from my garden.

The weather in the UK has meant it has taken around 2 months to capture all the photons :)

I am really happy that many smaller galaxies can be seen in the image i.e. PGC1432913, PGC1433323 & PGC1433543, a group to the bottom left of the image – they are believed to be approx 400M Light years from us.

It blows my mind as to how far away they are from us but also knowing that there are millions if not billions more galaxies much much further away….. Wish I had a bigger telescope :)

20hrs of data imaged over 6 nights, 3^rd Sept through to 1^st Nov 2021.

Processing; Deep sky stacker, Pixinsight with final tweaks in Photoshop, Lightroom + Topaz DeNoise AI.

Clear skies all.