This
Astrobin Debut Object is a galaxy group of 6 galaxies, called Hickson 27, located in the constellation of Eridanus at a declination of -12 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.
The largest and brightest galaxy in this image, Hickson 27a, is also known as LEDA 14873. It is an orange edge-on spiral galaxy with a blue magnitude of 17. It is 0.9 billion light years away and spans 25 arc-seconds, which corresponds to a Milky Way size diameter of 120,000 light years. As you might expect by its appearance, the barred spiral Hickson 27b is also the same distance away.
The other 4 galaxies, Hickson 27c, d, e and f, are further away at 1.2 billion light years. I don’t see much disturbance here, which likely means that they are too far apart from each other to be interacting.
It is amazing how well these 6 galaxies, at 2 different distances, form a single line.
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