To distinguish our broad family of galaxies from those belonging to the Hubble
Classification, which also show ring structures (called by us ``Normal Ring Galaxies"
- NRG), we call these objects ``Peculiar Ring Galaxies" - pRG (following Arp &
Madore, 1986, in Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations). We
have proposed a new classification scheme of pRGs, and have discovered 204 new pRGs so
far. Our campaign to collect photometric and spectroscopic data on pRGs is presently based
on observations made at the 1.6-m telescope of the Observatório do Pico dos Dias
(OPD/LNA, Brasil), the 1.5-m of Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO, Chile) and
at the 3.6-m telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Chile). The galaxy HRG
54103 resembles Saturn. Surface photometry yielded 
=14.25, 
=13.34, 
=12.80 and 
=12.28. The mean integrated surface brightnesses
for a 10" aperture are: B=20.29, V=19.44, R=18.87 and I=18.34.
This object seems to have a purely stellar ring. The calculated z is 0.0214± 0.0004. HRG
54103 shows an early-type spectrum, without well-defined features, even though the H
and MgIb lines are
evident. As another example, the ring-barred HRG 2405 has been observed at OPD to study
the dynamical structure; its spectrum shows LINER features. (M. Faúndez-Abans and
M. de Oliveira-Abans, in collaboration with D. Soares and L.P.R. Vaz/UFMG,
Belo Horizonte, V. Reshetnikov/St. Petersburg State University, Russia,
E. Wenderoth/ESO, Chile, and R. Mennickent/Universidad de Concepción, Chile)
Polar-Ring Galaxies (PRGs) constitute a remarkable galaxy subtype of the family of the collisional rings. They are probably composed by an S0-like galaxy and a polar ring, one lying perpendicularly to the other. The spectroscopic and photometric observations have been made with the same instruments described in the item above. We have re-visited our previously observed late-type disk galaxy ESO 603-G21, having performed additional observations with the OPD's 1.6-m telescope. The morphological and photometric features of this galaxy have been studied in detail: image processing techniques (e.g., high-pass filtering) have slightly enhanced a probable bridge to a previously unknown object, which we have denominated Anon J225110.4-201459.5, a probable low surface-brightness galaxy. Our derived radial velocities suggest that ESO 603-G21 and ESO 603-G20 my form a bound system. We may be facing a triple system undergoing merging events. We have discovered a new PRG candidate in the field of the pRG HRG 2302. This could be the farthest PRG of our sample, with a calculated z=0.060 and M(B) ~18.3 (assuming galactic absorption A(B)=0.69 from NED). Interesting new data on the following southern hemisphere PRGs have also been obtained: ESO 503-G17, Abell 1631-14, NGC 5122, AM 1934-563, ESO 500-G41, ESO 576-G69 (which we have found to be the seventh kinematically-confirmed PRG, a rare object), ESO 232-G04 and AM 1837-631. We have classified some of the spectra as LINER, early-type, Seyfert or starburst.(M. Faúndez-Abans and M. de Oliveira-Abans, in collaboration with D. Soares and L.P.R. Vaz/UFMG, Belo Horizonte, V. Reshetnikov/St. Petersburg State University, Russia, E. Wenderoth/ESO, Chile, and R. Mennickent/Universidad de Concepción, Chile)