NGC 681 (Gary Imm)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Cetus (Cet) · Contains: NGC 681 · PGC 977872 · PGC 978715

NGC 681

This object is the distant cousin of the Sombrero Galaxy (M104). It is an edge-on galaxy located 150 million light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -10 degrees. It spans less than 2 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This span is about 5x smaller than M104 in apparent view. Even though it looks smaller to us because it is further away, I find this galaxy to be more visually interesting than M104.

The diameter of this galaxy is about 80,000 light years. This is larger in diameter than M104. The fantastic dust lane of this object is wider proportionally than the M104 dust lane and has more variation in structure and shadows along its length.

I have seen this object referred to as the Little Sombrero Galaxy, even though it is actually bigger than M104 in actual size. I think it should be called the Big Sombrero Galaxy instead, but the nickname is not likely to change.

Original
B

B

Description: Astrobin Mouseover

Uploaded: ...

Texas Astronomy
Images from the EdgeHD Series
Unique or Unusal Deep Sky Targets
Cloudy Nights
First on Astrobin
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Rarely Imaged Small DSOs
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M

Astrobin Debuts (670 DSOs)
Classical Galaxy Bulge
Edge-on Galaxies
Edge-on Galaxy Dust Band
Sombrero Galaxy Shape

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4097090
PixInsight job	ISCKOVINP1RY7YS3FUHLIJR6YD2GA8PN
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	01h49m10s.804
RA (top/left)	01h48m53s.580
RA (top/right)	01h49m44s.608
RA (bottom/right)	01h49m28s.140
RA (bottom/left)	01h48m37s.600

Dec (center)	-10°25′33″.80
Dec (top/left)	-10°33′01″.95
Dec (top/right)	-10°27′42″.17
Dec (bottom/right)	-10°18′05″.66
Dec (bottom/left)	-10°23′25″.21

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 681

NGC 681

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

		...
You have no new notifications.

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

NGC 681

NGC 681

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

Sky plot

Histogram

In these public groups

In these collections

Notifications

AstroBin is in READ ONLY mode

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Sorry :-(

Are you really sure?

Warning!

Warning!

Are you sure?

Report abuse

Slideshow settings

IOTD/TP stats (last [x] days)

Distribution of astrophotographers

Distribution of subject types

Distribution of data sources

Sorry

Sorry

Share

Upload new revision

Upload uncompressed source (XISF/FITS/PSD/TIFF)

Delete image and all its revisions?

Delete original image?

Delete all other versions?

Delete all revisions?

Delete this revision?

IOTD/TP stats

The following people like this image

The following people bookmarked this image

Warning

Flag malfunctioning thumbnails

Contains

Remove yourself as a collaborator

Plate-solving information