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This Category includes any galaxy with an apparent luminous ring around it, and attempts to exclude objects which appear to be spiral galaxies which have had their arms tightly wound into nearly circular appearance. The latter objects are classified under Category 10: Galaxies with Peculiar Spiral Arms. There is, however, an apparent transition between the objects in Category 6 and those in Category 10, which may imply a physical relationship, or in some cases may be only accidental. In any case, we suspect that our Ring Galaxy Category 6 illustrates various separate phenomena leading to similar morphology. Several sub-categories are identified below:

6a. Empty Rings and Displaced Nuclei

In the beginning of this sub-category there are examples of empty rings. Sometimes there are galaxies nearby which could be interpreted as displaced nuclei, but they could also be interpreted as interacting companions. Previous good examples of empty rings are No. 146, 147 and 148 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (Arp 1966).

By page 6.2 nuclei are found apparently displaced towards the edge of the ring. By page 6.3 some of the famous and spectacular southern rings are seen with considerably off-set nuclei. On page 6.4 is the "Cart-wheel" (Fosbury and Hawarden 1977), the prototype for the rings shown here with only slightly displaced nuclei. In AM 1354-250 there is a low-surface-brightness filament linking the main galaxy with the companion. In AM 2331-705 the thick inner ring is so bright that it almost merges with the bright nuclear region.