When you name a star with Name A Star Live you choose the constellation (area of the night sky, such as Aries or Taurus) in which your star will be located. Many people want to name a star in the Big Dipper. But did you know the Big Dipper is not actually a constellation? It’s really a group of stars that are part of a very large constellation called “Ursa Major,” which is Latin for “big bear.”
Various cultures around the world have interpreted these stars in interesting ways. The Iroquois and Micmac peoples of North America viewed the bowl of the Big Dipper as a bear that was pursued by a group of hunters — the stars in the Big Dipper’s handle. The Arabians viewed the Big Dipper as a funeral procession with the Big Dipper’s bowl as the deceased and the stars in the handle as the mourners. The Germans thought of the Big Dipper as a large wagon. And in classical mythology the Big Dipper and the nearby Little Dipper were a mother and son that Zeus, the king of the gods, had transformed into bears and placed in the heavens.
Sailors, pilots and hikers have long used the Big Dipper to navigate. The two stars on the outer edge of the Big Dipper’s bowl are referred to as the “Pointer Stars.” If you draw a line from these two stars, the line will point to the North Star. In fact, American slaves escaping through the Underground Railroad used the pointer stars of the “drinking gourd” (as they knew the Big Dipper) to find their way North to freedom.
When you look at the Big Dipper, see if you can distinguish between the two bright stars Alcor and Mizar in the Big Dipper’s handle. Being able to distinguish between these two, close stars is a traditional test of one’s eyesight. These two stars — a.k.a. “the horse and the rider” — are about 83 light-years from Earth. The brighter star Mizar is actually a quadruple star system, and its dimmer neighbor Alcor is a binary star system.
When can you see the Big Dipper?
The Big Dipper is visible all year from most of Europe, the northern U.S. and Canada. In the southern U.S. it can be seen in the springtime during evening hours. Visit our online Constellation Calendar to see when the Big Dipper (in Ursa Major) is visible from your community.
If you’re thinking of naming a star in the Big Dipper for someone, consider Name A Star Live’s popular Star Bear Gift Set. This unique gift includes:
- A Star Bear — a cuddly teddy bear holding a star. What more appropriate way to name a star in the “Big Bear”?
- A printed Star Certificate;
- A digital, letter-size Star Certificate that you can download and print right away;
- A digital Launch Certificate we provide to you after we launch your star’s name into space: We’re the only star-naming service that makes you part of a real space mission!