Cavaliere 1995). Diaferio, Geller & Ramella (1994) and Ramella et al.  (1994) realized that compact groups may be a clue to the evolutionary state of loose groups. If compact groups are dense environments, galaxy interactions and mergers within them are likely (Barnes 1989).

Here, we apply an objective group-finding algorithm for identifying HCG-like systems in the CfA2+SSRS2 Redshift Survey. In §2 we describe previous sky-selected compact group surveys. In §3 we describe the redshift surveys. §4 contains a description of our group-finding algorithm and the biases it introduces. In §5 we present the catalog and evaluate the physical properties of RSCG’s. In §6 we apply Hickson’s (1982) selection criteria to RSCG’s. §7 contains an analysis of the environments of RSCG’s. In §8 we evaluate the luminosity function of galaxies in RSCG’s. We then calculate the selection function and compute the resulting abundance of RSCG’s.

Compact Group Selection on the Sky
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Examination of photographic plates led to the identification of compact groups as unusually dense, apparently isolated knots of galaxies on the sky (Shakhbazyan 1973; Vorontsov-Velyaminov 1959, 1977; Burbidge & Burbidge 1961; Arp 1966). Rose (1977) made the first large statistical study of these systems. Hickson (1982) later defined quantitative 