NGC 3977
NGC3977 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of. It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 13 April 1784. It was also observed by Lewis Swift on 16 April 1885, causing this galaxy to be listed twice in the New General Catalogue, as both NGC 3977 and NGC 3980.
NGC 3977 along with NGC 3972 are listed together as Holm304 in Erik Holmberg's A Study of Double and Multiple Galaxies Together with Inquiries into some General Metagalactic Problems, published in 1937. This grouping is purely optical, as NGC 3977 is about four times farther away than NGC 3972.
The SIMBAD database lists NGC3977 as a LINER galaxy, i.e. a galaxy whose nucleus has an emission spectrum characterized by broad lines of weakly ionized atoms.
Supernovae
Two supernovae have been observed in NGC 3977:- SN1946A was discovered by Edwin Hubble in May 1946.
- SN2006gs was discovered by Kōichi Itagaki on 22 September 2006.