This
Astrobin Debut Object is small group of 4 galaxies located 0.4 billion years away in the constellation of Orion at a declination of +7 degrees. It was classified by Dr. Arp into the category of Chains of Galaxies. This object is also known as Hickson 34, one of 100 small galaxy clusters included by Paul Hickson in 1982 in his
Hickson Collection.
The large orange elliptical galaxy at center is NGC 1875. This magnitude 13.6 galaxy spans 1 arc-minute in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 110,000 light years. Just below and left of NGC 1875 is the small magnitude 18 galaxy VV 169d. It is 20,000 light years in diameter.
Moving further below and left, the bluish spiral galaxy is VV 169b and the yellow spiral galaxy is VV 169c. Each of these 17 magnitude spiral galaxies is about 40,000 light years in diameter and it appears that a star stream bridge connects them. Both are significantly deformed and appear to be interacting.
While the 2 lower left spirals appear to be interacting, it is harder to tell if all 4 of the galaxies of this group are interacting. Large ellipticals typically show little deformation even if they are interacting.
The small spiral galaxy to the upper left in the image is LEDA 1306245, also about 0.4 billion light years away. It is interesting because the right half of the disk appears to be in shadow for some reason.
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