The sky around NGC 3981 at true scale, north up and east left, with stars to magnitude 8. The circles show the field of a low-power eyepiece and of 10×50 binoculars.
NGC 3981 is a spiral galaxy (Sbc) in Crater, 59 million light-years away
NGC 3981 (Arp 289, UGCA 255, ESO 572-020, PGC 37496) is a spiral galaxy (Sbc) in the constellation Crater, 59 million light-years away. It shines at magnitude 11.7 and spans 3.3′ × 2.1′ of sky, about 57,200 light-years across. It is a telescope object, 6 inches or larger, and it is highest in the evening sky in May.
Galaxy: a system of billions of stars, gas and dust held together by gravity, far outside the Milky Way. Spiral galaxies have a disk with arms; elliptical galaxies are smooth, round or oval swarms of older stars.
NGC 3981 is Arp 289, one of Arp's double galaxies with the appearance of wind effects
Halton Arp photographed it for his Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (1966) as field Arp 289. It is in his group of double and multiple, Arp 269 to 332, under the category Double galaxies with the appearance of wind effects.
NGC 3981 lies 4.3° northwest of Minkar, the magnitude 3.0 star. Three fingers held at arm's length cover about 5°.
NGC 3981 is highest in the evening in May
The chart gives its height above the horizon at 9 pm through the year, from 60°N to 40°S. It can be seen from the whole southern hemisphere and north to about 70°N, and never sets south of 70°S.
NGC 3981 is 59 million light-years away
The light seen from NGC 3981 tonight left it about 59 million years ago, long before modern humans existed. It ranks 125 of 422 by distance among the galaxies on Go Astronomy. Distance source: Cosmicflows-4 (Tully et al. 2023).
