NGC 681 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, located approximately 66.5 million light-years from Earth.

[2] John Louis Emil Dreyer, compiler of the first New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, described NGC 681 as being a "pretty faint, considerably large, round, small (faint) star 90 arcsec to [the] west" that becomes "gradually a little brighter [in the] middle".

NGC 681 shares many structural similarities with the Sombrero Galaxy, M104, although it is smaller, less luminous, and less massive.

Its thin, dusty disc is seen almost perfectly edge-on and features a small, very bright nucleus in the center of a very pronounced bulge.

[3]The SIMBAD database lists NGC 681 as a Seyfert II Galaxy, i.e. it has a quasar-like nucleus with very high surface brightnesses whose spectra reveal strong, high-ionisation emission lines, but unlike quasars, the host galaxy is clearly detectable.