Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  Box  ·  NGC 4169  ·  NGC 4170  ·  NGC 4171  ·  NGC 4173  ·  NGC 4174  ·  NGC 4175  ·  PGC 1853917  ·  PGC 1856860  ·  PGC 1861683  ·  PGC 213947
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Hickson 61, Gary Imm
Hickson 61, Gary Imm

Hickson 61

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Hickson 61, Gary Imm
Hickson 61, Gary Imm

Hickson 61

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

This is a galaxy group of 4 galaxies, called Hickson 61, located in the constellation of Coma Berenices at a declination of +29 degrees. It is the 4th brightest group out of the 100 in the Hickson catalogue. 

This object is also nicknamed the Box.  As such, it is 1 of 4 nicknamed Hickson groups.  The other 3 nicknames are for Hickson 57 (Copeland's Septet), Hickson 79 (Seyfert's Sextet), and Hickson 92 (Stephan's Quintet).

This is not a true cluster - the 3 yellow galaxies are all about the same distance at 180 million light year away, although I don't see much disturbance so I believe they are too far apart to be interacting.   As you might expect, the blue galaxy is much closer, at about 40 million light years away.

This tight and uniquely oriented grouping of four galaxies spans less than 4 arc-minutes. At the top is the low surface brightness (LSB) spiral galaxy NGC 4173 with a diameter of 70,000 light years.  At left is NGC 4175, an edge-on spiral galaxy with a wide dust lane and a diameter of 95,000 light years. To the right is the 90,000 light year diameter lenticular galaxy NGC 4169.  The bottom galaxy is edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4174 at only 50,000 light years in diameter. 

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.

*******************************

For those of you who have not yet tried my Deep Sky Compendium, you can download it for free here.  The purpose of the Compendium is to help you find deep sky targets for astrophotography.  Its primary feature is a detailed Excel spreadsheet which contains 3000 deep sky targets, including 2000 images and a link to each object's Astrobin post.  Once you enter your location and the current time, the spreadsheet will tell you which objects are best to image, including consideration of altitude, sun position and moon position.  The objects are cross-referenced to 28 catalogues and 83 object traits.

Comments