Optical and radio survey of Southern Compact Groups of galaxies. I. Pilot study of six groups

Multi-wavelength observations of Hickson's Compact Groups (HCGs) have shown that many of these groups are physical bound structures and are in different stage of evolution, from spiral-dominated systems to almost merged objects. Very few studies have analysed the Southern Compact Groups (SCGs) sample, which is though to be younger that HCGs, due to an on average higher number of spiral galaxies. We present here the first results from optical and radio observations on a pilot sample of SCGs.Comment: accepted on A&A on July 19, 2007. Figures 1 and 3-12 will be available only in electronic for