NGC 660

[alan4908]

Located in Pisces, NGC 660 is an unusual polar ring galaxy about 45 million light years distant.

Polar ring galaxies have two distinct systems, the host galaxy and the polar ring. It is believed that it was formed a billion years ago after it collided with another galaxy, or, perhaps, it started as a disk galaxy and then collected additional matter from a passing galaxy.

The outer ring is tilted 60 degrees relative to the central galaxy and contains many red and blue supergiant stars with many newly created stars. The central region shows detailed structures in the dust lanes and has a significant amount of star formation. It is also thought to harbour vast amounts of dark matter. In 2012 a very high energy outburst near the galaxy’s centre was detected, possibly from a black hole.

The LRGB image was taken by my Esprit 150 and represents about 14 hours integration time.

Alan

LIGHTS: L:33, R:11, G:18, B:19 x 600s.

[ollypenrice]

Superb. Let me say that twice.

There's an elongation in your stars (and presumably in the galaxy as well) which is, in my view, a trivial distraction but which you might want to address. Guiding? Optics? Tilt? Fixable, I'm sure.

Olly

[alan4908]

10 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Superb. Let me say that twice.

There's an elongation in your stars (and presumably in the galaxy as well) which is, in my view, a trivial distraction but which you might want to address. Guiding? Optics? Tilt? Fixable, I'm sure.

Olly

Thanks Olly ! - I shall look into the issue  

Alan

[wimvb]

Excellent image. The galaxy's structure, as well as the strong blue colour of the ring suggest recent star formation. In fact, there are many smaller Ha regions along the outer ring, like a ruby necklace. I would definitely add some hours of Ha data to bring those out, if I were you.

[alan4908]

On 07/03/2023 at 08:47, wimvb said:

Excellent image. The galaxy's structure, as well as the strong blue colour of the ring suggest recent star formation. In fact, there are many smaller Ha regions along the outer ring, like a ruby necklace. I would definitely add some hours of Ha data to bring those out, if I were you.

Thanks for the comment Wim. Yes, some Ha would be good, those HII regions are very faint in my data and dominated by the blue. 

Alan 

[wimvb]

41 minutes ago, alan4908 said:

those HII regions are very faint in my data and dominated by the blue. 

That’s my experience as well. But a few hours of Ha changes that. When I get these "blue knots” I do a few test exposures with the Ha filter to check

Edited March 8, 2023 by wimvb

[gorann]

Great image Alan with lovely detail! Have you used Blur XTerminator on it? If not, it may not only bring out even more detail but also fix the minor star issues that @ollypenrice noted.

[alan4908]

20 hours ago, gorann said:

Great image Alan with lovely detail! Have you used Blur XTerminator on it? If not, it may not only bring out even more detail but also fix the minor star issues that @ollypenrice noted.

Thanks Goran. 

Yes, I used BlurXterminator on the image, an amazing tool. I cannot actually see the the minor aspect ratio issues with the stars but one of my software tools  (CCDInspector) informs me that they are present to a higher degree than I would like.  Further analysis leads me to the conclusion is that I need to be more rigorous in eliminating poor subframes before integration 

Alan

[MartinB]

Wowsers, that is a superb image.  These samll distant galaxies are very difficult to capture and process effectively. This is stunning!

[alan4908]

20 hours ago, MartinB said:

Wowsers, that is a superb image.  These samll distant galaxies are very difficult to capture and process effectively. This is stunning!

Glad that you liked it Martin 

Alan