The Book of Stars: Being a Simple Explanation of the Stars and Their Uses to Boy Life

by A. Frederick Collins

To make sure you have not mistaken some other star for the North Star it will be a good idea to prove your find. Search around in the northern sky a little and you will see a group of seven bright stars fixed in the sky just as the cardboard stars are fixed on the black surface of your chart, and which are shown in [Figs. 4] and [5].

The Big Dipper.—This group of seven stars is called the Big Dipper because if a broken line joined all the stars together a very good figure of a big dipper would be formed. A group of stars is called a constellation, and this constellation is shown as we see it in [Fig. 6], and as the ancient shepherds and sailors pictured it in [Fig. 7].

Fig. 5.—Line for Sighting the North Star.

In England this group of stars, or constellation, is sometimes called the Plough, for our friends across the pond see in it the likeness of a plough as well as of a dipper. It is also called the Great Bear the world over after the ancient name given it, but it requires some stretch of the imagination to liken it to that nubbly short-tailed animal.

All these fancy names were given this great group of stars long before the birth of Christ and by these names the constellation is still familiarly called. Astronomers of the present time also call this constellation the Great Bear, but they say it in Latin and so it becomes Ursa Major, which is a very high toned and scholastic sounding word. But the Big Dipper is a name that is good enough for all ordinary purposes and so we’ll use it.

Fig. 6.—The Big Dipper As We See It.

The stars forming the Big Dipper stand out so bright and clear in the northern sky that you won’t have the slightest trouble in finding it, especially if you have the star finder at hand to help you.

In using the star finder there is one thing you should keep well in mind and that is that the Big Dipper as we see it turns round the North Star, like the hands of a clock, but in the opposite direction. That is, the Big Dipper, when below the North Star, seems to turn round the North Star from left to right.