This
Astrobin Debut Object is a galaxy group of 4 galaxies, called Hickson 6, located about 0.5 billion light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -8 degrees.
The Hickson catalog is a collection of 100 galaxy groups, established by Paul Hickson in 1982. Hickson compact galaxy groups are tightly spaced and somewhat isolated 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.
Unlike many Hickson objects, this is a true galaxy cluster and all of them are about the same distance away. The brightest galaxy, Hickson 6a, is a magnitude 15.4 galaxy. The largest galaxy is 6b, a Milky Way size galaxy with a diameter of 120,000 light years and an apparent width of 50 arc-seconds.
It looks to me like there could be a few star stream plumes here as a result of galaxy interaction, but it is hard to tell.
This is another part of the sky where there are more galaxies in the background than stars.
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