This image captures a galaxy group located in the constellation of Leo at a declination of +22 degrees.  This object is the 44th entry in the Hickson Galaxy Group catalog and is also designated Arp 316. Among the 100 Hickson groups, this group is the largest, the second closest, and the second brightest.  The group is an interesting study in various galaxy types, including spiral, elliptical, barred, irregular, and distorted galaxies. 

The conventional wisdom, repeated by just about every web site that publishes an image of this amazing object, is that these galaxies are interacting with each other causing the beautiful deformations that we see in 2 of the 4 galaxies.  But looking at the data and the nature of the deformations and star streams, I do not think this is a true cluster.  The data shows that 4 galaxies are all at slightly different distances, from 80 to 115 million light years away.  I believe that they are only aligned through superposition from our apparent view and are unlikely to be interacting with each other.   As with many DSOs, the cause of the deformations is not obvious. 

Just above center is the largest galaxy in this image, NGC 3190, a striking spiral located 85 million light years away that we see nearly edge on.  It is a magnitude 11 galaxy which spans 4 arc-minutes in our apparent view.  This corresponds to a diameter of 100,000 light years.  The thick, meandering  dust lane is fun to trace. The disturbances here are so severe that this galaxy has two designations - NGC 3189 and NGC 3190 - because it was thought to be 2 objects long ago. 

Continuing the distortion theme, to the upper right is NGC 3187, a spiral with an incredible central region studded with bright blue star-forming regions. The arms are hard to understand - they appear to be unusually straight and bend upward and downward somewhat out of plane.  This galaxy is located further away, at 115 million light years.

Above and to the left is NGC 3193, a large fuzzy featureless elliptical galaxy 110 million light years away.

To the lower right is NGC 3185, a beautiful galaxy located 80 million light years away.  A barlense lies at the center, surrounded by a mid-region pseudo-ring.

Many more faint galaxies are seen throughout the image. 

The Hickson catalog is a collection of 100 galaxy groups, established by Paul Hickson in 1982. Hickson compact galaxy groups are strictly defined by 3 criteria: number of galaxies, total magnitude, and isolation from other galaxies. A typical Hickson group has 4 galaxies, but some have up to 8. You can see more about Hickson galaxy groups in my Astrobin Hickson Collection.

I originally imaged this object back in 2018, seen here, but I decided to give this object another try with a longer focal length setup, better equipment, and better processing tools and techniques.