"they are known as the ""Jetiqaraqshi"" (Жетіқарақшы) and, in Kyrgyz, as the ""Jetigen"" (Жетиген). Within Ursa Major the stars of the Big Dipper have Bayer designations in consecutive Greek alphabetical order from the bowl to the handle. In the same line of sight as Mizar, but about one light-year beyond it, is the star Alcor (80 UMa). Together they are known as the ""Horse and Rider"". At fourth magnitude, Alcor would normally be relatively easy to see with the unaided eye, but its proximity to Mizar renders it more difficult to resolve, and it has served as a traditional test"
"Ursa Minor Ursa Minor (Latin: ""Lesser Bear"", contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky. Like the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, hence the North American name, Little Dipper: seven stars with four in its bowl like its partner the Big Dipper. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Minor has traditionally been important for navigation, particularly by mariners, because of Polaris being"
"Ursa Major Ursa Major (; also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means ""greater (or larger) she-bear"", standing as a reference to and in direct contrast with nearby Ursa Minor, the lesser bear. In antiquity, it was one of the original 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy (2nd century AD), and is now the third largest constellation of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Major is primarily known from the asterism of its main seven relatively bright stars comprising the ""Big Dipper"", ""the Wagon"", ""Charles's"
"by following a line through the two stars—Alpha and Beta Ursae Majoris—that form the end of the 'bowl' of the Big Dipper, for 30 degrees (three upright fists at arms' length) across the night sky. The four stars constituting the bowl of the Little Dipper are of second, third, fourth, and fifth magnitudes, and provide an easy guide to determining what magnitude stars are visible, useful for city dwellers or testing one's eyesight. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the IAU (International Astronomical Union) in 1922, is ""UMi"". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte"
"in 1869 by Richard A. Proctor, who noticed that, except for Dubhe and Alkaid (Eta Ursae Majoris), the stars of the Big Dipper asterism all have proper motions heading towards a common point in Sagittarius. Thus, the Big Dipper, unlike most constellations or asterisms, is largely composed of related stars. Some of the brighter stream members include Alpha Coronae Borealis (α CrB or Alphecca or Gemma), Beta Aurigae (β Aur), Delta Aquarii (δ Aqr), Gamma Leporis (γ Lep) and Beta Serpentis (β Ser). More bright and moderately bright stars which are currently believed to be members of the group are"
"best-known patterns in the sky. Like many of its common names allude to, its shape is said to resemble either a ladle, an agricultural plough or wagon; in the context of Ursa Major, they are commonly drawn to represent the hindquarters and tail of the Great Bear. Starting with the ""ladle"" portion of the dipper and extending clockwise (eastward in the sky) through the handle, these stars are the following: Except for Dubhe and Alkaid, the stars of the Big Dipper all have proper motions heading toward a common point in Sagittarius. A few other such stars have been identified,"
"the Big Dipper that form a part of a loose open cluster called the Ursa Major moving group, sharing the same region of space and not just the same patch of sky from Earth's perspective. This group has an estimated age of about (500 ± 100) million years. As the members of this group share a common origin and motion through space, this yields an estimate for the age of Beta Ursae Majoris. Two stars are known to be located in relatively close proximity: 37 Ursae Majoris at and Gamma Ursae Majoris at ; much closer to each other than"
"reversal of the east and west constellations (seven constellations of the east have been placed in the west and the seven constellations of the west have been placed in the east). These differences are thought to be due to an error by the painters or because the reproductions of the astronomical directions were erroneous. The stars are painted various sizes, using the Korean tradition of indicating the brightness of the stars. There are 128 stars in total in the painting; some scholars have identified the Big Dipper and either one or several other constellations. A chemical substance and constituent mineral"
"series comprised seven large canvases—each one named after a star in the Big Dipper constellation—with lyrical images depicting a solitary man and diminutive creatures juxtaposed against the immensity of the universe. He used this composition in a poster for the 1997 Madrid Carnival, in which a smiling couple surrounded by masks contemplate a brilliant-blue dusk sky lit by the constellation, as symbolized in the city’s coat of arms. He also designed an Osa Mayor watch for Watch-Celona. In 1998, accompanied by painter Darío Álvarez Basso, he went to India, Nepal, and Jordan. The visit to the Red Sea on a"
"pair Messier 81 (one of the brightest galaxies in the sky) and Messier 82 above the bear's head, and Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), a spiral northeast of η Ursae Majoris. The spiral galaxies Messier 108 and Messier 109 are also found in this constellation. The bright planetary nebula Owl Nebula (M97) can be found along the bottom of the bowl of the Big Dipper. M81 is a nearly face-on spiral galaxy 11.8 million light-years from Earth. Like most spiral galaxies, it has a core made up of old stars, with arms filled with young stars and nebulae. Along with M82, it"
"the Big Dipper. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson explained the naming as apt metaphor in Egyptian ideology. ""Circumpolar stars are a very good metaphor for the afterlife because when viewed, they never seem to set: they simply rotate around the pole star. They are the undying stars, or in Egyptian terminology, the Indestructibles, a perfect destination for the soul of the dead king,"" he said in 2001. The context for this is the Egyptian belief that Ra (the sun god) was given birth to by Nut (the sky goddess). Nut was pictured as a naked female spread across the sky, and identified"
"Mizar and Alcor Mizar and Alcor are two stars forming a naked eye double in the handle of the Big Dipper (or Plough) asterism in the constellation of Ursa Major. Mizar is the second star from the end of the Big Dipper's handle, and Alcor its fainter companion. The traditional name Mizar derives from the Arabic المئزر miʼzar meaning 'apron; wrapper, covering, cover'. Alcor was originally Arabic سها‎ Suhā/Sohā, meaning either the ‘forgotten’ or ‘neglected’ one.; notable as a faintly perceptible companion of Mizar. Mizar, also designated Zeta Ursae Majoris (ζ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Zeta UMa, ζ UMa), is itself"
"the sky. Different cultures have created different groupings of constellations based on differing interpretations of the more-or-less random patterns of dots in the sky. Constellations were identified without regard to distance to each star, but instead as if they were all dots on a dome. Orion is among the most prominent and recognizable constellations. The Big Dipper (which has a wide variety of other names) is helpful for navigation in the northern hemisphere because it points to Polaris, the north star. The pole stars are special because they are approximately in line with the Earth's axis of rotation so they"
"detector output data stream. Data on exoplanet candidates is submitted to the ""Kepler"" Follow-up Program, or KFOP, to conduct follow-up observations. ""Kepler"" field of view covers 115 square degrees, around 0.25 percent of the sky, or ""about two scoops of the Big Dipper"". Thus, it would require around 400 ""Kepler""-like telescopes to cover the whole sky. The ""Kepler"" field contains portions of the constellations Cygnus, Lyra, and Draco. The nearest star system in ""Kepler""'s field of view is the trinary star system Gliese 1245, 15 light years from the Sun. The brown dwarf WISE J2000+3629, 22.8 ± 1 light years"
"to the star formation (an ""asterism"") known in America as the Big Dipper and in Europe as The Plough. The pointer stars of the Big Dipper align with the North Star. In this song the repeated line ""Follow the Drinkin' Gourd"" is thus often interpreted as instructions to escaping slaves to travel north by following the North Star, leading them to the northern states, Canada, and freedom: The song ostensibly encodes escape instructions and a map from Mobile, Alabama up the Tombigbee River, over the divide to the Tennessee River, then downriver to where the Tennessee and Ohio rivers meet"
"α UMi, δ UMi, ε UMi, ζ UMi, η UMi, θ UMi, λ UMi) and 北極 ""Běijí"" (Northern Pole) (including β UMi and γ UMi). Ursa Minor is bordered by Camelopardalis to the west, Draco to the west, and Cepheus to the east. Covering 256 square degrees, it ranks 56th of the 88 constellations in size. Ursa Minor is colloquially known in the US as the Little Dipper because its seven brightest stars seem to form the shape of a dipper (ladle or scoop). The star at the end of the dipper handle is Polaris. Polaris can also be found"
"by connecting some of the stars which form the constellations of the Big Dipper and broader Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor (Little Dipper). Cultures in other parts of the world have also conceived these stars or constellations as symbols of the origin of things, the supreme godhead, divinity and royal power. The supreme godhead was also identified with the dragon, symbol of unlimited power (""qi""), of the ""protean"" primordial power which embodies both yin and yang in unity, associated to the constellation Draco which winds around the north ecliptic pole, and slithers between the Little and Big Dipper. By the"
"Sun. Making up the handle of the Little Dipper are Delta Ursae Minoris or Yidun and Epsilon Ursae Minoris. Just over 3.5 degrees from the north celestial pole, Delta is a white main-sequence star of spectral type A1V with an apparent magnitude of 4.35, located 172±1 light-years from Earth. Bearing the proper name of Yildun, it has around 2.8 times the diameter and 47 times the luminosity of the Sun. A triple star system, Epsilon Ursae Minoris shines with a combined average light of magnitude 4.22. A yellow giant of spectral type G5III, the primary is an RS Canum Venaticorum"
"Draco to the north and northeast, Boötes to the east, Canes Venatici to the east and southeast, Coma Berenices to the southeast, Leo and Leo Minor to the south, Lynx to the southwest and Camelopardalis to the northwest. The three-letter constellation abbreviation 'UMa' was adopted by the IAU in 1922. The ""Big Dipper"" (a term mainly used in the United States and Canada; ""Plough"" and (historically) ""Charles' Wain"" are often used in the United Kingdom) is an asterism within Ursa Major composed of seven bright stars (six of them of second magnitude or higher) that together comprise one of the"
"the United States (above lat. 40°N) the Big Dipper is circumpolar"". Similarly, the star will never rise above the local horizon if δ − θ is less than −90° (observer in Northern Hemisphere), or δ − θ is greater than +90° (observer in Southern Hemisphere). Thus, Canopus is invisible from such locations as San Francisco and Louisville, if marginally visible from Fresno, Tulsa, and Virginia Beach. Some stars within the far northern constellation (such as Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor) roughly north of the Tropic of Cancer (+23½°) will be circumpolar stars, which never rise or set. For"
"Pictor Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the ""painter's easel""). Normally represented as an easel, Pictor was named by Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. The constellation's brightest star is Alpha Pictoris, a white main-sequence star around 97 light-years away from Earth. Pictor also hosts RR Pictoris, a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova, reaching apparent (visual) magnitude 1.2 in 1925 before fading into obscurity."
"and David Pankenier relate the shapes of both the ancient Chinese characters for Di and Tian to the patterns of stars in the northern skies, either drawn, in Didier's theory by connecting the constellations bracketing the north celestial pole as a square, or in Pankenier's theory by connecting some of the stars which form the constellations of the Big Dipper and broader Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor (Little Dipper). Cultures in other parts of the world have also conceived these stars or constellations as symbols of the origin of things, the supreme godhead, divinity and royal power. By the 6th"
"Adar, the March equinox; and a modern story of that same people makes it the infant of the walidan (mother?) among the three Banat (the Mourners: Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid).In 50,000 years The Big Dipper will face the other way. Chinese Taoism personifies ζ Ursae Majoris as the Lu star. In Chinese, (), meaning ""Northern Dipper"", refers to an asterism consisting of Zeta Ursae Majoris, Alpha Ursae Majoris, Beta Ursae Majoris, Gamma Ursae Majoris, Delta Ursae Majoris, Epsilon Ursae Majoris and Eta Ursae Majoris. Consequently, Alpha Zeta Ursae Majoris itself is known as Běi Dǒu liù, () and Kāi Yáng,"
"as (, ) and (, ). USS Megrez (AK-126) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the star. Delta Ursae Majoris Delta Ursae Majoris (δ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Delta UMa, δ UMa), also named Megrez, is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Major. With an apparent magnitude of +3.3, it is the dimmest of the seven stars in the Big Dipper asterism. Parallax measurements yield a distance estimate of from the Sun. Megrez has 63% more mass than the Sun and is about 1.4 times its radius. It has a stellar classification of"
"Dipper is the celestial compass, and its handle's direction determines the season and month. The stars are divided into Three Enclosures and 28 Mansions according to their location in the sky relative to Ursa Minor, at the centre. Each mansion is named with a character describing the shape of its principal asterism. The Three Enclosures are Purple Forbidden, (), Supreme Palace (), and Heavenly Market. () The eastern mansions are , , , , , , . Southern mansions are , , , , , , . Western mansions are , , , , , , . Northern mansions are"
"Beta Ursae Majoris Beta Ursae Majoris (β Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Beta UMa, β UMa), also named Merak, is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Major. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is +2.37, which means it is readily visible to the naked eye. It is more familiar to northern hemisphere observers as one of the ""pointer stars"" in the Big Dipper or the Plough (UK), which is a prominent asterism of seven stars that forms part of the larger constellation. Extending an imaginary straight line from this star through the nearby Alpha Ursae Majoris (Dubhe) extends"
"of the bier"" ( """"). The daughters of the bier, i.e. the mourning maidens, are the three stars of the handle of the Big Dipper, Alkaid, Mizar, and Alioth; while the four stars of the bowl, Megrez, Phecda, Merak, and Dubhe, are the bier. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN; which included ""Alkaid"" for this star. It is known as 北斗七 (the Seventh"
"Gamma Ursae Majoris Gamma Ursae Majoris (γ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Gamma UMa, γ UMa), also named Phecda, is a star in the constellation of Ursa Major. Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified. Based upon parallax measurements with the Hipparcos astrometry satellite, it is located at distance of around from the Sun. It is more familiar to most observers in the northern hemisphere as the lower-left star forming the bowl of the Big Dipper, together with Alpha Ursae Majoris (Dubhe, upper-right), Beta Ursae Majoris (Merak,"
"Polaris is also known as the North Star, and is generically called a pole star or lodestar. Polaris is only visible during fair weather at night to inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere. The asterism ""Big Dipper"" may be used to find Polaris. The 2 corner stars of the ""pan"" (those opposite from the handle) point above the top of the ""pan"" to Polaris. While observers in the Northern hemisphere can use the star Polaris to determine the Northern celestial pole, the Octans constellation's South Star is hardly visible enough to use for navigation. For this reason, the preferred alternative is"
"Crater (constellation) Crater is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name means ""cup"" in Latin. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it depicts a cup that has been associated with the god Apollo and is perched on the back of Hydra the water snake. There is no star brighter than third magnitude. Its two brightest stars, Delta Crateris of magnitude 3.56 and Alpha Crateris of magnitude 4.07, are ageing orange giant stars that are cooler and larger than the Sun. Beta Crateris is a binary star system composed of a white main"
"Delta Ursae Majoris Delta Ursae Majoris (δ Ursae Majoris, abbreviated Delta UMa, δ UMa), also named Megrez, is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Major. With an apparent magnitude of +3.3, it is the dimmest of the seven stars in the Big Dipper asterism. Parallax measurements yield a distance estimate of from the Sun. Megrez has 63% more mass than the Sun and is about 1.4 times its radius. It has a stellar classification of A3 V, which means it is an A-type main sequence star that is generating energy at its core through the nuclear fusion"
"as viewed from the South Pole. As viewed from the Equator, no circumpolar constellations are visible. As viewed from mid-northern latitudes (40–50° N), circumpolar constellations may include Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and the less-known Camelopardalis. Circumpolar constellation In astronomy, a circumpolar constellation is a constellation (group of stars) that never sets below the horizon, as viewed from a location on Earth. Due to Earth's rotation and axial tilt with respect to the Sun, the stars and constellations can be divided into two categories. Those stars and constellations that never rise or set are called ""circumpolar"". The rest"
"have been a B3 main-sequence star and is now slightly variable. At magnitude 4.95 the dimmest of the seven stars of the Little Dipper is Eta Ursae Minoris. A yellow-white main-sequence star of spectral type F5V, it is 97 light-years distant. It is double the Sun's diameter, 1.4 times as massive, and shines with 7.4 times its luminosity. Nearby Zeta lies 5.00-magnitude Theta Ursae Minoris. Located 860 ± 80 light-years distant, it is an orange giant of spectral type K5III that has expanded and cooled off the main sequence, and has an estimated diameter around 4.8 times that of the"