In the northern hemisphere of the sky is the beautiful constellation Ursa Minor. It acts as the "little sister" of the most famous section of space -.

Today, this is where the North Star lies. Although, according to forecasts, this situation will change in less than 100 years. Actually, this state of affairs is affected by the precession of the earth's axis.

It is worth noting that the constellation Ursa Minor is circumpolar and well observed. Despite the fact that it occupies a relatively small space. After all, it stands at 56th place in size. Indeed, the footprint is only 256 square degrees.

Legends about the constellation Ursa Minor

In fact, stories about this celestial site are closely intertwined with legends about.
For example, in Greece it was believed that Ursa Major is the nymph Callisto, and Ursa Minor is her dog.
However, there is another version of the appearance of the constellation. According to her, the seven stars of the region are the Hesperides (daughters of Atlas). They guarded the golden apples in Hera's garden. For which she thanked them by placing them in heaven.

The stars that form the constellation Ursa Minor

An important feature is that the main object in the area is polar Star. Of course, she Alpha. In fact, it is a multiple system. Of course, the North Star is the brightest. And not only in this area, but throughout the entire northern part of the sky.

Concerning beta, then she performs Kohab. It's an orange giant. And, for example, gamma is a white giant Ferkad. Interestingly, since ancient times, these two objects are considered twins. Moreover, they even came up with a nickname for them. "Guardians of the Pole" . Actually, they are called so, because it seems that they are moving around the Alpha constellation.
Delta — Yildun and Zeta are white dwarfs of the main sequence. However, the last luminary turns into a giant.
This constellations are also a dwarf, only yellow-white. It has high luminosity.
Epsilon unlike others, it is represented by a whole system of stars.

Other objects

Perhaps, among the other components, one can distinguish dwarf galaxy with the same constellation name. It belongs to the elliptical. What matters is the satellite. That is our galaxy.
Scientists have discovered the presence Ursida meteor shower.

In addition, the constellation has an asterism Small Bucket. It is formed, of course, by the North Star, as well as Beta, Delta, Zeta, Eta, Epsilon and Gamma. It is noteworthy that the shape of the asterism resembles Big Bucket. We can say that even in this constellation Ursa Minor is in many ways similar to the Big Sister.

Observation

To the delight of lovers of looking at the sky, the constellation Ursa Minor has good visibility all year round. That is, all the time. The area must be searched at a latitude from +900 to -00.

Despite the small area, the constellation Ursa Minor is a rather interesting celestial site. It seems that every part of it is an important component of something bigger. Of course, this is a colorful and beautiful constellation. Which, we can say with certainty, deserves our attention.

Ursa Minor is the constellation most popular among lovers of the night sky. The universe is full of surprises and unexpected discoveries. There are so many unknown things in it!

The luminaries that are visible in the sky turn out to be a huge accumulation of gases, and the pattern of the constellations takes on bizarre shapes. Is there anything similar or are they all unique?

It will be interesting for children and their parents to watch the night sky, and before that, learn a lot about the secrets of the world.

What does the constellation Ursa Minor look like?

Ursa Minor is located next to Ursa Major and forms a small bucket. By connecting with a line all the stars included in it, we get the same vessel, familiar from childhood.

The cluster of celestial bodies itself is quite dim, and it is easier to find it in a dark sky.

To see this constellation with the naked eye, you need to find the North Star, which, due to its size and brightness, will be the first to catch your eye.

The brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor

The brightest point in the sky appears bright only to human eyes. In fact, there are many brighter objects. However, the North Star shines more effectively than the others. It is a supergiant and has two satellites.

The star itself is central, and its brightness exceeds the capabilities of the Sun by 2000 times. The existence of the second satellite became known not so long ago because of its size. The dwarf companion was not shown to photographic lenses of telescopes from the Earth for many years.

Names of stars in the constellation Ursa Minor

The constellation is formed from several parts. In terms of their brightness, they are inferior to their neighbors from the Big Dipper, however, they are clearly visible in a clear sky.

Four of them have their own names, the rest are named after the letters of the Greek alphabet:

1. Alpha. The first in the constellation, also called the Polar. The brightest in the night sky.
2. Beta. Another name is Kokhab. The second brightest in a cluster of stars. It has a satellite and is an orange giant.
3. Gamma is Ferkad. Beta and gamma constellations in Arabic mean "two calves."
4. Delta, Epsilon, Zita and Ita have no special names.

All of them are more than 400 light years away from Earth.

How to find Ursa Minor by Big

Here is a small guide:

1. Choose a night with clear weather. In a clear sky, it is much easier to find the dim lights of Ursa Minor. It is better to choose a place without artificial lighting. In big cities, this is hard to find, so you can drive away to the outskirts.
2. Find the Big Dipper in the sky. It is difficult to confuse it with something, because due to the relatively close distance to the Earth, the stars in this constellation shine brighter than the rest. It has the shape of a trapezoid with a long handle.
3. Find the North Star. It is located to the north than Ursa Major, and is the extreme point in Ursa Minor.
4. Here is what you were looking for. From the handle of the ladle, mentally draw a glance to the ladle itself and the entire constellation will be before your eyes.

How to find the North Star in the sky

The easiest way to find the North Star is in Ursa Major. The brightly burning parts of this constellation can be seen all year round in Russia and a number of other countries of the northern hemisphere. They are a big bucket.

From the extreme points that draw his image, you need to mentally draw a line five times the length between this segment.

Another way to find a Cepheid is to use a compass. The polar star is a guide for travelers. She directed them to the North Pole.

Observing the luminary, you can see that it is the only one that does not change position. As the night progresses, all the constellations move across the night sky, and it freezes over the North Pole motionless.

Why are the constellations called bears?

The appearance of the constellations does not even remotely resemble either a brown or a white beast. Then why weren't they called "ladles"? It is believed that the name came from the Greeks, who knew about the proximity to the North Pole.

The map was a great luxury, so they were guided by the sky. Their assumption even in 545 BC turned out to be true.

Who is the main inhabitant of the North Pole? Of course, a bear. Hence the name of the two constellations, located near the northernmost point of the planet.

Myths and legends about Ursa Major and Ursa Minor

The existence of constellations has been known for a very long time. Even before our era, they were guides for travelers. However, for the ancient Greeks, they were not just bright points in the sky.

According to myths, Zeus, the god of thunder, once had a secret lover. The story goes that she was famous for her unearthly beauty and attracted the eyes of all men. Her name was Callisto.

Once a girl broke the rules, her little mistake cost her dearly. She was turned into a terrible bear. Zeus, deciding to protect the beauty, threw her into the sky, and tried so hard that he stretched his tail. Therefore, it is now so long at the Big Dipper.

The girl's faithful companion was her dog, which was turned into a bear cub, following her to heaven. The tale was common among the ancient Greeks.

The expanses of the starry sky can show many unusual things. Even about the bears familiar to everyone, you can learn a lot of interesting things. How many more unknown constellations lie in the vastness of space? Knowledge opens a window to the world of our Universe for a person.

The constellation Ursa Minor is located in the northern hemisphere of the starry sky.. It contains 25 stars that are visible to the naked eye. In its form, this cluster of luminaries is very reminiscent of the constellation Ursa Major, but the bucket is smaller in size. Therefore, it is called the Small Dipper, and the name of the most visible cluster of stars contains the word "small".

Located in the constellation North Pole of the World. This is a fixed point around which the stars rotate due to the rotation of the Earth around its axis. The point is constantly slowly mixing at 20 seconds per year. This happens due to precession. Our blue planet is regularly affected by the sun and moon. Therefore, it does not move in orbit directly, but, as it were, roaring from side to side. As a result of this, the earth's axis is mixed, which affects the location of the poles of the world.

The most famous cosmic body in the constellation is the North Star.. But she is not the only one. This is a triple star system. In the center is a supergiant. In terms of its mass, it is almost 5 times larger than our Sun. And in terms of brightness, it surpasses it by 2 thousand times. Near the supergiant is a less massive star. Its mass is 1.26 times the mass of our star. It makes one revolution around the supergiant in 30 years. Only the Hubble telescope could detect it. The third star is 1.39 times the mass of the Sun. She is at a decent distance from the supergiant and her companion and makes one revolution around this couple in 100 thousand years.

The North Star in its current quality is about 80 million years old. This is a cloudless and happy childhood of a supergiant by the standards of space. That is, when dinosaurs lived on Earth, the triple star system belonged to the Main Sequence. And the current state was not in sight. Although the last representatives of the ancient lizards could contemplate it in the night sky, exactly the same as we see it now. To get from Earth to this brightest cosmic formation, you need to spend 434 light years. But the sheepskin is probably worth the candle.

From time immemorial, the North Star has indicated to sailors the direction to the north, since it is located very close to the North Pole of the World. In order not to be mistaken in the definition of this luminary, navigators found the constellation Ursa Major in the sky, and then its extreme stars Merak and Dubhe. They were connected by an imaginary straight line and continued through the night sky beyond Dubhe. This line rested on a shining small pulsating star, which was the desired star, showing the way to the north.

The constellation Ursa Minor contains other bright stars. One of them is the second brightest star is Kochab. In those days when the Phoenicians sailed the seas, it was this star that was closest to the North Pole of the world. Therefore, experienced sailors determined the northern direction precisely by it. This went on for 3 thousand years. Only in the 6th century did the heavenly priorities change, and Columbus and Vasco da Gama didn’t even know about Cochab.

It represents a giant orange star, the brightness of which is 130 times the brightness of the Sun. Its mass is 2.2 times the mass of our star. The star is located at the upper extreme point of the Small Bucket, and at the lower point it is located star Ferkad. This is a white giant. Its brightness is 1100 times greater than the sun, and its radius is 15 times. Both of these luminaries are perfectly visible in the sky. In the old days they were called "Guardians of the Pole".

The rest of the stars are much fainter. Together with their bright counterparts, they form a contour in the night sky, which in its shape resembles a ladle with a handle. And the constellation Ursa Minor has been known since ancient times. It was indicated in his folio "Almagest" by Claudius Ptolemy. It happened in the middle of the II century, and for 1300 years after that it was the main astronomical document. Today, a neutron star has been discovered in the constellation, which has been named Culver. It is notable for being the 8th of all discovered neutron stars..

heavenly scheme

Legend

Zones

Zodiac

Milky Way

The constellations through which the Milky Way passes are selected, taking into account its brightness.

families

Prototypes

Characters? animals? inanimate objects?

Almagest

Messier

The number of Messier objects in the constellation. The lighter the background of the constellation, the more objects in it.

Latitudinal constellation visibility

constellation area

Number of constellation stars

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And for those who have already read, Eratosthenes tells the following amusing version of the transformation of the Artemis confidante into a bear, and then into a constellation. First, he calls her Date, not Callisto. It was Dates that Zeus treacherously took possession of, and Artemis rashly turned her into a bear. Zeus placed the Big Dipper in the sky in memory of an unfortunate misunderstanding. Eratosthenes also adds that when Artemis found out about the innocence of Dates, she placed the second image of the bear - Ursa Minor - opposite the first. Probably the first one would not be boring.

Another version

Perhaps this is one of the nurses of Zeus - the ideological nymph of Crete (that is, the nymph of Mount Ida), and according to the early versions of the myth - the natural bear - Kinosura (or, according to other versions, Melissa.).

Kinosura
Generally, Kinosura- another Greek name for Ursa Minor, meaning dog tail. They called Ursa Minor and the Dog Callisto, and Voz, whose driver was Bootes.

Looking up, on cloudless nights it is easy to find a large bucket of the Big Dipper, but the problem of how to find the Little Dipper turns out to be unsolvable for many: its stars are rather dim, and the bright light of street lamps and advertising structures, indoor lighting of residential premises and other light sources , switched on at night in the city, interfere with the natural light environment of nature.

The night sky is poorly visible through the city illumination, so it is best to enjoy the beauty of the stars in an open space where neither buildings nor artificial lighting interfere.

On a full moon, even the light of the moon can interfere, interrupting the modest stars of the desired constellation with its brightness. The ideal place and time for looking at the stars in the sky would be a moonless night in the steppe in a place located in the northern hemisphere of our planet.

Although the constellation Ursa Minor is small and its components are not too bright, its location in the sky near the north celestial pole is remarkable. It consists of 25 stars, large enough to be seen on a clear moonless night without aids.

Its configuration includes the North Star, which is almost exactly located at the north pole of the world and therefore convenient for orientation along the cardinal points. Due to the slow shift of the earth's axis, the situation will change over time and another star will indicate the northern direction, but in the next 1200 years, Ursa Minor can be safely used as a guide by finding the tip of the handle of her ladle.

Despite the 25 stars in this constellation, they recognize it by the seven largest of them, forming a memorable figure in the sky, similar to a ladle, at the end of the handle of which is the polar star. It is visible on Russian territory all year round and is one of the figures that serve as excellent reference points for the initial study of the starry sky.

Small Bucket Search Landmarks

To understand how to find Ursa Minor, you need:

• know what the desired configuration looks like;
• understand that the composition of the small bucket includes only 3 more or less bright stars, and therefore a certain skill is needed;
• know the landmarks next to which the necessary stars are located in the sky.

The easiest way to start your search is with the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor - Polaris.

The reference point here will be the bucket of the Big Dipper. Finding it is not difficult even for a beginner.

And then it all depends on the eye:

1. Find a big bucket: in winter and autumn it descends to the horizon in the north, in summer they look for it in the west, where it hangs with its handle up, and in spring it is found in the east standing vertically with its handle down.
2. Through the 2 extreme stars that form the side wall of the dipper (a and ß Ursa Major), mentally draw a line and extend it upwards in relation to the bowl of the dipper.
3. Mentally put aside on this line 5 times the distance between a and ß, taken as a basis.
4. In the area calculated in the sky, find a star of approximately the same brightness. This will be Polar, marking the end of the handle of the Ursa Minor bucket. The small bucket itself will stretch towards the Big Dipper, but its handle will bend in the opposite direction.

In the conditions of an urban sky illuminated by extraneous light sources, it is easy to find only three bucket stars, one of which is Polar.

The chance to detect the rest is much less, and sometimes due to excessive ambient illumination, they are not visible at all. Therefore, without sufficient experience, it is difficult to immediately recognize the desired group of stars. But after several trainings, the search will take place without difficulty, especially since the handle of the ladle is attached like a nail in the sky by the North Star to the point around which it, as if on a leash, rotates.

City dwellers have stopped looking at the starry sky, which is hard to see due to the illumination of the streets and surrounding high-rise buildings. But looking at the star dome calms thoughts and emotions.

Focusing on the search for Ursa Minor, you can turn away from the hustle and bustle of the work week and think about the beauty of other worlds located so far away that the light from them has not yet reached our planet.