THE POLE STAR & THE GREAT BEAR

THE GREAT BEAR

or 

THE BIG DIPPER

or 

THE URSA MAJOR

or

THE PLOUGH

Call it whatever you want, but it is still one of the most famous and easily recognisable constellations in the sky throughout the year.

The Great Bear is useful in locating the Pole Star, the Polaris or the North Star, which for centuries has served nightly as a heavenly navigational object for mariners and explorers alike, indicating the orientation of the North Pole.

Visible in the picture above: Note the two stars on the left, at the bottom of the photo, point to the Pole Star on the right, (just a little left of the tree) which in fact is the brightest star in the Ursa Minor (The Little Bear) constellation. It is seen directly above the Pole Star on the right in above photo at the end of the 'handle' of the 'Little Dipper ' asterism.

The Pole Star or Polaris is directly above the north pole of the earth and stays there all of the time.  All other stars appear to move slowly from east to west as the earth rotates, but the pole star stays stopped at due north.

There are two distinctive star pattern constellations to look for or affirm when attempting to identify the Pole Star, although one is much bigger and brighter and the other much smaller and dimmer.  The first constellation looks like a pan with a handle, and is called the Great Bear or the Big Dipper.  The end two stars are called the pointers and these two stars aim you towards Polaris or the Pole star. If one would draw an imaginary line through these two stars and extend it to the first biggest star, then it would meet the Pole Star, which actually belongs to the constellation known as the Little Bear or Ursa Minor.



On the other side of the Polar star is a constellation that looks like a W. This is called  Cassiopeia. If you can see this Cassiopeia constellation then you need to look for the pole star going upwards from the top of the 'W'.

Photograph taken from the
Deck of Turtle Point Cottage,
Beaver Lake, Tamworth, Ontario.

10 sec @ 3.5 Nikon D40X 
29th June 2012
10.26.42 PM
5.1 MB