NGC 3081

Hi All,

A while back my eye was caught by an image I saw in Mark Bratton’s Herschel book of what turned out to be a galaxy (NGC 3081) in Hydra, at first glance I took it to be a planetary nebula, something along the lines of the Saturn nebula but without the ansae.

Last night having got band from playing my harmonica at the band rehearsal and with a lovely clear sky I decided to take a look, lying pretty close to the well loved Ghost of Jupiter planetary, it was well placed for me to observe on Tuesday evening.

I found this to be a rather unusual galaxy, having a distinct bright central nucleus and a definite outer ring, slightly elongated E-W but basically a ring, some discernible haze outside of the right but no evidence of any structure connecting the ring to the nucleus or of any arms projecting out from the ring, therefore back to my original thoughts that it looked like a planetary nebula with a bright core, stellar illuminated with a fainter outer shell of expanding debris.