Image:

The DRAGN has a plumed double structure, with compact hotspots well aligned across the nucleus on the inside of more diffuse plumes. The northern hotspot is relatively weak and in our image is not as bright as the diffuse maximum at the bend of the bright ridge which dominates the northern lobe. However higher resolution observations by R. A. Laing, (reproduced by Cox, Gull & Scheuer 1991), clearly show that this hotspot is the highest-brightness feature. Cox et al. interpret the Z-symmetry as clear evidence for the precession of the jet axis.

For such a bright source, with such unusual structure, 3C 123 has been remarkably little studied, perhaps because of the optical obscuration.

In our image one can just see some weak stripes across the radio emission at about PA 100°; these are artifacts.