Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Serpens (Ser)  ·  Contains:  NGC 6027
NGC 6027 Seyfert's Sextet - Hickson 79, Jerry Macon
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NGC 6027 Seyfert's Sextet - Hickson 79

NGC 6027 Seyfert's Sextet - Hickson 79, Jerry Macon
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NGC 6027 Seyfert's Sextet - Hickson 79

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Description

Imaged on nights of 7/19/2020, 7/20/2020.

Seyfert's Sextet is a group of galaxies about 190 million light-years away in the constellation Serpens. The group appears to contain six members, but one of the galaxies is a background object and another "galaxy" is actually a separated part of one of the other galaxies. The gravitational interaction among these galaxies should continue for hundreds of millions of years. Ultimately, the galaxies will merge to form a single giant elliptical galaxy. The four members show very similar redshifts, from 4000 to 4500 km/s, while the fifth is measured at nearly 20000 km/s, placing it about 900 million light-years away.

The group was discovered by Carl Keenan Seyfert using photographic plates made at the Barnard Observatory of Vanderbilt University. When these results were first published in 1951, this group was the most compact group ever identified.

This galaxy group is a bit of a challenge to image, being so small with the individual galaxies having magnitudes around 15 to 16.

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NGC 6027 Seyfert's Sextet - Hickson 79, Jerry Macon

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