Executing PHP script through image

I am making a stats program. When the nessicary include file is included it does a reverse-DNS lookup to find the remote host's DNS name. The problem with this is that is seems slow(at least on my test server with a DSL connection). I thought the best way to speed things up would be putting the entire script into a file and then using <img src="stats.php"> within the page. The problem is that I don't know how to output the image with PHP. The image would not be dynamic just a file on the server. I would appreciate peoples comments or other suggestions JJ Harrison webmaster@tececo.com www.tececo.com