NGC 660 is located around 45 million light years away in the constellation of Pisces.
It is classified as a “polar ring galaxy,” in that it has a belt of gas and stars around its center that was torn away from an encounter with another galaxy around 1 billion years ago.
Polar ring galaxies are very rare. The first polar ring galaxy was observed in 1978 and around a dozen have been found since then.
In late 2012 a massive outburst ten times as bright as a supernova was seen coming from NGC 660. Astronomers think the burst was caused by a massive jet of material shooting out of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Imaged in LRGB on my Planewave CDK 1000 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image acquisition and processing: Mike Selby