A group of quasi-stellar objects closely associated with NGC 1068

It is shown that three of the compact X-ray sources detected by ROSAT close to the nearby classical Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068 are quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) with redshifts z = 0.261, 0.385, and 0.655. Also, using previous opt ical studies, we show that a total of II QSOs brighter than V = 19 mag and with redshifts that range from 0.261 to 2.108 lie within a radius of 50' of NGC 1068. The distribution and very high surface density of these QSOs str ongly suggest that they are physically associated with NGC 1068 and were ej ected from it.