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The stars of the Ursa Major Constellation can be used to find their smaller siblings Ursa minor. . | Credit: Made in Canva by Daisy Dobrijevic
At the beginning of this month we spoke of Ursa Major, the Big Bear, so we take a look at the small bear, Ursa minor this week. Astronomy neophytes sometimes confuse the star cluster of the pleiades with the small dip because the lightest pleiaades are similar to a tiny, distorted dipper.
But in reality, most people have never seen the little dipper because most of his stars are too dark to be seen by light -struggling sky.
The seven stars, of which we derive a bear, are also known as Little Dipper. Polaris, the Nordstern, is located at the end of the handle of the small dipper, the stars of which are quite weak. Its four weakest stars can be triggered with very little moonlight or street lighting. The best way to find your way to Polaris is to use the so -called “hands” stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper, Dubhe and Merak. Simply draw a line between these two stars and extend it about five times and you will finally arrive near Polaris.
Exactly where they see Polaris in their northern sky depends on their latitude. From Minneapolis it is halfway from the horizon to overhead point (called Zenit). At the North Pole you will find it directly over head. Polaris seems to be sitting on the horizon on the equator.
When you travel north, the Nordstern climbs increasingly the further north you go. When you drive south, the star falls deeper and finally disappears as soon as you cross the equator and go to the southern hemisphere.
Heavenly Sentinel
Apart from the Nordstern, the two stars on the front of the Little Dipper’s Bowl are the only ones that are easy to see. These two are often referred to as the “guard of the rod” because they apparently march around Polaris like wax polar. The next bright stars to the sky with the exception of Polaris itself. Columbus mentioned these stars in the tree trunk of his famous journey over the ocean and many other navigators found them useful to measure the hour of night and their place on the sea.
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The brightest guard is Kochab, a star of the second size with an orange color. The other guard goes to an old Arabic name, Pherkad – the “dark of the two calves”. Pherkad is indeed dimmer than cooking and shines in the third size. The other two stars that complete the pattern of the small dipper bowl are the fourth and fifth size.
Thus, the bowl of the little dipper, which is visible from most places in the northern hemisphere every night of the year every night of the year, can serve as an indicator for how dark and clear its night sky is really. For example, if you can see all four stars in the bowl, you have a well -groomed sky. Unfortunately, thanks to the spread of light pollution in recent years, only the guards from most locations in the city and in the suburb are usually visible, which means that the quality of the sky would be fair to the basis of.
Interestingly, the big and small dipper are arranged so that the other on the other is upright when one is upright. In addition, their handles seem to extend into opposite directions. Of course, the Big Dipper is by far the lighter of the two and appears as a long -stemmed pan, while the little dip is similar to a weak trowel.
A supergiant, but not the brightest
Polaris is actually a triple star system; The main star is a yellow, lighter, five times as massive, 46 times larger and almost 1,300 -shining as shining as our sun. There is a popular misunderstanding in which many believe that the north star is the brightest star in the sky. In a size of +1.98, however, it is only 47 in the brightness. This ranking can change by one or two places, since Polaris is a Cepheid variable star, the brightness of which can fluctuate by about 4 days by about 0.1.
Polaris stays in the sky all year round almost in the same place, while the other stars circle around them. Only the apparent width of about 1.5 full moons separates Polaris directly in the north, around which the stars go every day.
However, due to the wobble of the earth’s axis (referred to as a privacy), the sky pole shifts over the centuries. Polaris is still approaching the bar and on March 24, 2100 it will be as close to her as it will ever happen, only 27.15 arch minute or a little less than the apparent diameter of the moon. Since it takes 25,800 years for the earth axis to complete a single wobble, different stars have become a northern star at different times. In fact, the brightest guardian, Kochab, the Nordstern at the time of the beginning of the Iron Age, was around 1200 BC. Chr.
Would you like to check out the stars of the night sky up close? Take a look at our guides in the best binoculars and the best telescope offers now so that you can find the right equipment for your needs. Our leaders to the best cameras for astrophotography and the best lenses for astrophotography can also help you get what you need to photograph the night sky.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History MagazinePresent Heaven and telescope and other publications.
