On Saturday night (22 March) I took a look at the tight galaxy chain (3 components) VV 171 = UGC 4991 for the first time. The three galaxies are lined up in a 1' string N-S with the center one tougher, partly because of a superimposed star. I wasn't expecting, though, a fairly rich, compact cluster. Here's the SDSS image of the field, along with computed V mags (roughly averaging G and R) and identifications (Megastar has several misidentifications). All the labeled galaxies were visible in my 24-inch at 375x and fit in the 11' field of my 6mm Delos! LEDA 1667862 was the faintest one picked up (V = 16.2) at my "nearby" observing site (Lake Sonoma), which is at the edge of blue/green light-polution zones.
If the image is displayed as a thumbnail, I'll post a more complete report on Adventures in Deep Space with a high-rez image. I should mention that VV 171 is located in western Leo at 09 23.4 +22 19, a couple of degrees northwest of NGC 2903.
VV 171 = UGC 4991.jpg
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