m57: cylinder or dense lobe?

[anita]

i read a few reports that the nebula shell of m57 is more like a long cylinder shape or tube than a ring...what do you think?
anita

[neubjr]

Anita, I unfortunately don't know anything to help answer your question, but I would be interested in reading the reports about this that you are talking about. If you could post those that would be great. Thanks,

Joshua.

[anita]

Hello, Neubjr and thanks for the reply;
i read about m57, the ring nebula, having a shape more like a cylindar in the seds messier pages. i have also another repport on this topic but i must retrive it from the observatory library before i can give you more details on it.
i have a whole nickle bet riding on this one, so it'll be fun to find out the true shape of m57! thanks for your help...
anita

[budcamp]

some objects that are ball shaped are almost transparant when viewed through the center but because the sides of the ball are being seen "on edege" they are opaque. This makes them look like a ring.

This might be what you were reading about.