Groups and Clusters of Galaxies with Messier objects

Galaxies are usually members of

groups or clusters, and those listed in Messier’s

catalog are no exceptions. Below please find those groups containing Messier

galaxies.

Groups of Galaxies containing at least two Messier objects

Ordered roughly by Right Ascension.

Local Group of Galaxies

Messier objects:

The Andromeda Galaxy

M31

and its satellites

M32

and

M110,

as well as the Triangulum galaxy

M33.

Other members (over 30 in all) include our

Milky Way Galaxy, the

Large and the

Small Magellanic Cloud

(LMC and

SMC), as well as several

smaller galaxies. It is also somehow associated with the

group around the large elliptical Maffei1.

M81 group

Messier objects:

M81

and

M82.

This group is very nearby, only some 11 million light-years distant.

Other members include

NGC 3077 and

NGC 2976, an outlying member of the

group is NGC 2403.

M96 group (Leo I group)

Messier objects:

M95,

M96,

M105.

There are many more galaxies in this group, including NGC 3384 in the

same field as M105.

Leo triplett (M66 group)

M65 (NGC 3623),

M66 (NGC 3627)

and NGC 3628.

Probably physically related to the M96 group.

Virgo Cluster of Galaxies

(or Coma-Virgo Cluster)

Messier objects:

M49,

M58,

M59,

M60,

M61,

M84,

M85,

M86,

M87,

M88,

M89,

M90,

M91,

M98,

M99,

and

M100.

The Virgo Cluster with its some 2000 member galaxies dominates our

intergalactic neighborhood, as it represents the physical center of our

Local Supercluster, and influences all the galaxies and galaxy groups

by the gravitational attraction of its enormous mass. Our Local Group

has experienced a speed-up of 100..400 km/sec towards this cluster

(the Virgo-centric flow), and it is still unclear if at one time it will

fall and merge into the cluster. HST observations of Cepheids in M100,

together with the work of

Nial R. Tanvir on the

M96 group extrapolated to this cluster,

indicate that the Virgo cluster is at a distance of some 60 million

light-years.

M51 group

Messier objects:

M51,

M63.

Further Messier galaxies contained in groups

The following list contains the Messier galaxies which are members of

groups but not listed above; usually, some info on the corresponding

groups is included in the object pages for these galaxies. It is ordered

roughly by Right Ascension again.

• M74 is probably the chief member of a small

  physical group of galaxies (the M74 group)

• M77 is the dominating member of a small but

  remarkable group of galaxies, the M77 group (sometimes also

  called the NGC 1068 group).

• M83 forms the M83 group together with

  some conspicuous but quite southern galaxies, including

  Centaurus A (NGC 5128)

  and the unusual galaxy NGC 5253.

• M101 forms the M101 group of at least

  9 galaxies with several faint companions.

• The M102 candidate

  NGC 5866 is the brightest member of a

  conspicuous group of galaxies in Draco, the NGC 5866 group, which

  contains (besides NGC 5866) the bright edge-on spiral

  NGC 5907, NGC 5879,

  and a lot of fainter galaxies.

---

Hartmut Frommert

([email protected])

Christine Kronberg

([email protected])

Last Modification: 25 Jan 1998, 16:07 MET