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On Saturday night at the approx 1900 m site of the Mt Kobau Star Party. I was able to determine 3 members. I was using my 12.5" dob at 365X. The two with the widest separation (I'm assuming NGC 6027 and 6027 E) held steady with averted vision. The third (6027 A?) was quite close to another, and flickered in and out, but was clearly a separate object.

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Bill, your description closely matches the appearance in my old 13.1" Coulter dob. The smallest object, by the way, (your third) is HCG 79C and is located just off the west edge of HCG 79A. Also adding to the crowded scene are a couple of mag 14.5 stars just east of the clump of the galaxies and a slightly brighter mag 14 star close west.

By the way, it was Edouard Stephan, of Stephan's Quintet fame, who really discovered this group visually. He only logged a single object, but based on his description "eF, vF* inv, 2 vF st nr" I thinks it's likely that his "vF* involved" was actually the second cluster member and it's possible that one or two of his "2 vF st nr" was the third member! After all, in 1882 when he made the discovery, Stephan was using a 31.5-inch silver-on-glass reflector.

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Steve Gottlieb
18" f/4.3 Starmaster
Adventures In Deep Space - New article on MASH planetaries
7500+ NGC/IC Visual Descriptions
NGC/IC Project

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