If you follow the imaginary line from Merak to Dubhe and continue the arc, you will eventually reach the Northern Star. In Javanese, it is known as "lintang jong", which means "the jong constellation". Likewise, in Malay it is called "bintang jong". [50] Esoteric lore [ edit ]

Eventually, 88 of these star patterns were identified. The patterns helped people navigate on land and by sea as well as tell time, appearing in different parts of the sky depending on the day and year. (The stars don’t move. Earth moves, rotating on its axis once every 24 hours and revolving around the Sun once every year.) Messier 109 is another barred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major. It is located southeast of the star Phecda (Gamma Ursae Majoris). The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 10.6 and is 83.5 million light years distant. One of the few star groups mentioned in the Bible (Job 9:9; 38:32; – Orion and the Pleiades being others), Ursa Major was also pictured as a bear by the Jewish peoples. "The Bear" was translated as "Arcturus" in the Vulgate and it persisted in the King James Version of the Bible. The Ursa Major Moving Group was discovered in 1869 by the English astronomer Richard A. Proctor, who realized that all stars of the Big Dipper with the exception of Alkaid and Dubhe have proper motions heading toward a common point in the constellation Sagittarius. The stars Alpha Coronae Borealis, Beta Aurigae, Delta Aquarii, Gamma Leporis and Beta Serpentis are outlying members of the group. Alcor is a visual companion to Mizar. It belongs to the spectral class A5V. The two stars are sometimes known as the “Horse and Rider.”Ursa Major is the third largest constellation in the sky. It occupies an area of 1,280 square degrees.

However, Polaris does not look very bright to us because it is so far away. Polaris is 431 light years away from Earth: over 6400 million million kilometres (4000 million million miles). Legends about the Pole Star The remaining stars are located in the bear’s hind legs. These stars are known as the Tania Borealis, Tania Australis, Alula Borealis, and Alula Australis. Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874). An Icelandic-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p.674. M82 emits an infrared excess and is the brightest galaxy in the sky when observed in infrared light.In 1996, a planet at least 2.53 times the size of Jupiter was discovered in the star’s orbit. Two more planets were discovered in the system in 2002 and 2010. Alula Borealis and Alula Australis – ν (Nu) and ξ (Xi) Ursae Majoris – “the first leap” The galaxy has a visual magnitude of 10.7 and is approximately 45,000 light years distant. A type 2 supernova, 1969B, was observed in M108 in 1969. Messier 109 (M109, NGC 3992)