The Maffei 1 Group of Galaxies (also IC 342 Group)

The galaxies of this group have probably once formed a subgroup of our Local Group, which during the dynamical history of the group, have been ejected because of a violent encounter with the Andromeda Galaxy M31. Since, they have moved away to an about 10 million light years distance.

As the Maffei 1 group lies very close to the Galactic plane (the equatorial plane of our Galaxy), it is highly obscured by the dark dusty matter of our Milky Way. Only one of them, IC 342, has got an IC number, and no one is in the NGC.

The known galaxies in this group are (in the order of their discovery):

UGCA 86, listed in our Local Group list, is also not lying far from IC 342. It would be interesting to know its distance a bit more acurate, and to investigate its possible involvement in the encounter scenario.

Astronomical data for the Maffei 1 group galaxies: 

Name         Con  RA (2000)  Dec


IC 342       Cam  03:46.8 +68:06
Maffei 1     Cas  02:36.3 +59:39
Maffei 2     Cas  02:41.9 +59:36
Dwingeloo 1
Dwingeloo 2

Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

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Last Modification: 8 Mar 1998, 21:30 MET