This object, also known as Hickson 72, is a small galaxy cluster located just over half a billion light years away in the constellation of Bootes at a declination of +19 degrees. Each of the tiny galaxies is about 30 arc-seconds wide in our apparent view, which corresponds to an actual diameter of 80,000 light years. Dr. Arp classified this object in the category of Chains of Galaxies.
The cluster consists of the 6 central galaxies plus the one just above it. All are the same distance away of 580 million light years except for the whitish circular galaxy in the center, which is about twice as far away.
I really like galaxy chains, but this object is not nearly as striking as others such as Arp 330 or Shakhbazian 166. To see some of these other galaxy chains, please see my
Astrobin Galaxy Chain Collection.
As is common for high focal length images in this region, the faint background galaxies outnumber the stars in this image.
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