NGC 3982 (also IRAS 11538+5524, MCG 9-20-36, UGC 6918 and PGC 37520) is a magnitude +12.0 face-on intermediate spiral galaxy located 68 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. NGC 3982 is a part of the M109 Group.
The galaxy was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel using a 47.5 cm (18.7 inch) f/13 speculum reflector at Windsor Road, Slough, on the 14th April 1789.
Right Ascension 11h 56m 28.1s, Declination +55° 07' 31"
This face-on spiral galaxy, called NGC 3982, is striking for its rich tapestry of star birth, along with its winding arms. The arms are lined with pink star-forming regions of glowing hydrogen, newborn blue star clusters, and obscuring dust lanes that provide the raw material for future generations of stars. The bright nucleus is home to an older population of stars, which grow ever more densely packed toward the center. NGC 3982 is located about 68 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy spans about 30,000 light-years, one-third of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. This color image is composed of exposures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The observations were taken between March 2000 and August 2009. Read more