NGC 3950
SDSS image of NGC 3950 and NGC 3949
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Ursa Major
Right ascension	11h 53m 41.41s
Declination	+47d 53m 04.46s
Redshift	0.074602
Heliocentric radial velocity	22,365 km/s
Distance	1.030 Gly (315 Mpc)
Apparent magnitude (V)	15.7
Apparent magnitude (B)	16.7
Surface brightness	13.2
Characteristics
Type	E, E0;cand. dwarf
Apparent size (V)	0.30' x 0.3'
Other designations
PGC 37294, MCG +08-22-030, BTS 051, HOLM 301B

NGC 3950 is an elliptical galaxy of type E,^[1] in Ursa Major. Its redshift is 0.074602,^[2] meaning NGC 3950 is 1.03 billion light-years or 316 Mpc from Earth, which is within the Hubble distance values.^[3] This high redshift makes NGC 3950 one of the furthest New General Catalogue objects.^[4]

NGC 3950 has apparent dimensions of 0.30 x 0.3 arcmin, meaning the galaxy is 90,000 light-years across.^[5] It was discovered by Lawrence Parsons^[6][7] on April 27, 1875, and he described it as, "extremely faint, 2.6 arcmin north of h 1009".^[6]

In a research article published in 1990,^[8] NGC 3950 was believed to be a dwarf galaxy, and a close companion of a larger spiral galaxy, NGC 3949.^[9] But further research involving measuring its redshift in 2005 showed NGC 3950 is much further away in the background.^[10] Together with NGC 3949, they both form an optical galaxy pair called HOLM 301.^[11]