The Big Dipper

Each morning now, as I step outside to assess the sky, wind, and earth at my feet, I see the Big Dipper up-ended before me.  Hanging there like a bright bunting over the cobalt vault of night beyond, the Big Dipper is the first asterism recognized by all the children slowly wobbling under the Northern sky. 

Somehow, fetching as it is, the Big Dipper is not an “official” constellation.  Instead, the group of stars comprising what we call the Big Dipper are considered an asterism: a readily recognizable cluster of stars.  The Big dipper is, strictly speaking, only part of a hot mess of stars in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, which looks like a bear in the same way a box looks like a sphere.

Yes, it really is that bad.

You need to work a lot harder than I am willing to work, to find a bear in the shotgun splay of stars comprising the Great Bear.  You might find a kind of angular mouse in the stars, but not a bear.

But here we are.  The ancients presented Ursa Major to us—just the same as they did mayonnaise and the common cold and four-way stops—and we remain stuck with that.

--Mitchell Hegman

Photo: Wikipedia