For the observing amateur, Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs) are fascinating targets. There are a few groups that are nice associations of bright galaxies, as for instance Hickson 44 in Leo or Hickson 68 in Canes Venatici. These two groups are easy targets already for small telescopes and there are many pictures of them available on the internet. But these two groups are clearly exemptions. Most Hickson Groups include only fainter galaxies and are much more compact. Hence, their successful observation profits from aperture (and dark skies, of course) and many of the remaining catalog members are interesting targets mostly for observers with larger telescopes of 12" or even more aperture. These groups include famous examples  as "The Box" in Coma (Hickson 61), Stephan's Quintet in Pegasus (Hickson 92), Copeland's Septet in Leo (Hickson 57), or challenging Seyfert's Sextet in Serpens (Hickson 79). Other challenging examples without own names include Hickson 55 in Draco or Hickson 56 in Ursa major.

Most of my observations were made with my selfmade 14" and 22" Dobsonian telescopes. While many details could be observed or at least suspected already with the 14", the 22" was always the better choice.  

The first impression of a typical Hickson Group in a low power eyepiece is a distinct "something", clearly non-stellar, often only fleeting. Only with higher powers, the individual members become distinct, and I generally use exit pupils of 1.2 to 2 mm (resulting in 250 to 440x in my 22" f/4) for getting the details. Some of the groups, Hickson 79 (Seyfert's Sextet) being one of the most prominent members of them, remain even at this magnification partly unresolved.  

To me, observing a Hickson Group is like solving a puzzle. Usually some of the brighter group members are easily visible, sometimes even with direct vision. The challenging part is resolving the other, fainter members or splitting the group into individual galaxies. For the most difficult groups, you may easily spend from half an hour to indefinitely long for dissecting the group even with larger telescopes.

Hubble Space Telescope images

Download the Hickson Observing Atlas

 (pdf file 14 MByte, last update: 2009)

The finder charts have a field of view of 3° and are sufficient to locate the field in combination with Sky Atlas 2000 or Uranometria. If you print  the Atlas double-sided, you can quickly switch between DSS image and data on one side and the finder chart on the other side for easy use at the telescope. 

To the right are two sample pages of the observing atlas.

I hope that this atlas is some help for others and avoids duplicate efforts in putting together data, downloading POSS images, and preparing finder charts.  

Hickson 44 in the head of Leo is probably the most photographed Hickson group and makes a nice quartet of bright galaxies. In large telescopes, the dust lane of a may be discerned as a sharp edge. The faintest group member, d, is a barred spiral with a relatively low surface brightness. 

Hickson 68 at the NE border of Canes Venatici is similarly bright as the preceding group, but more compact. With five members, this is the most attractive of the brighter Hickson groups. 30 arcminutes ENE is spiral NGC 5371, which is not part of the group.

In Hickson 16 in Cetus, the four members are already somewhat fainter and the appearance becomes more typical for a Hickson Group.

Hickson 92 in Pegasus is famous Stephan's Quintet, which can be found SE of NGC 7331. The challenge in this groups is splitting b and d and seeing the sixth (non-member) galaxy offset from the group.

Hickson 61 in Coma is named "The Box". Though the four galaxies have visual magnitudes between 12.2 and 13.3, the surface brightness in particular of b is quite low.

Hickson 40 in Hydra welcomes you to the more compact groups that require higher magnification.

With Hickson 51 in Leo we enter to the more challenging groups. Here 6 out of 7 members were seen with 22".

Hickson 57 in Leo is also named "Copeland's Septet". Though it is a dense group, it is less compact than "Seyfert's Sextet" further below and therefore easier to split into individual galaxies.

Hickson 79 aka "Seyfert's Sextet" is the prototype of the extremely tightly packed Hickson Groups with five galaxies squeezed into a horseshoe of only 2 arcminutes. Resolving this group requires highest magnification on galaxies reaching only mag 15 to 16, a challenge even in large telescopes.

Hickson 56 in Ursa Maior is next to bright galaxies NGC 3718 and 3729. Four galaxies are lined up in a very compact chain of a mere 90 arcseconds and their complete resolution is a challenge. Even the detached primary member a is a difficult target with low surface brightness.

Hickson 55 is an extremely compact chain of very faint and tiny somethings in Draco.  Even with large aperture this group requires a lot of patience to pin down the precise locations of at least some of the individual members.

Hickson 54 is another very tight chain of tiny galaxies in Leo. This group stretches over only 40 arcseconds with members of only 5 arcseconds diameter and appears even more difficult than preceding Hickson 55.

Hickson 50 in Ursa Maior is the most difficult entry in the Hickson Catalog. Five almost non-existent galaxies form a circle of 25 arcseconds next to a "bright" mag 17 star. The brightest galaxies have visual mag 18 and detecting the group at all is a major achievement.