NGC 660 and IC 148 - first galaxies of the season

[gorann]

Well, I may accidentaly have caught a few galaxies with the RASA over the last weeks, but now I also got the Edghe HD 11 up and running on the Mesu mount and I first aimed at NGC 660, a peculiar galaxy that may be interacting with its neighbour IC 148. Here are some info I found:

NGC 660 is a peculiar and unique polar-ring galaxy located approximately 45 million light years from Earth in the Pisces constellation. It is the only such galaxy having, as its host, a "late-type lenticular galaxy". 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. The warped galaxy at the lower right is IC 148. It lies at a similar distance to NGC 660 so it is in fact possible that this is the galaxy that NGC 660 interacted with in the past.

Seeing and therefore guiding were not the best at these first galaxy-hunting nights and I may get back to this object later to capture more details, maybe with my 14" SCT.

102 x 5 min (so 8.5 hours over two nights) with the ASI071 (gain 200, offset 30, -15°C). Stacked in PI and processed in PS

Edited September 23, 2020 by gorann

[MarkAR]

A very nice pair they make.

[gorann]

1 hour ago, MarkAR said:

A very nice pair they make.

Thanks Mark!