At around 10 p.m. local daylight time on these warm June evenings, face north and look overhead to see the seven stars that compose the famous Big Dipper. At this time of the year, the handle appears ...

This week’s naked-eye object is an optical double star in Ursa Major. At the bend of the Big Dipper’s handle, you’ll find magnitude 2.4 Mizar (Zeta [ζ] Ursae Majoris) and magnitude 4.0 Alcor (80 Ursae ...

Now that we’re well into May, as soon as darkness sets in, you can easily see the Big Dipper, a celestial marvel, upside-down in the high northern sky. It’s pouring its celestial magic on us.

Buried in the heart of the constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear, and easily the most famous group of stars in the Colorado springtime sky, is the seven-star configuration popularly known as the ...

Now that we are officially into spring, skywatchers are becoming more aware of the change in the celestial scenery. Interestingly, ten of the 21 brightest stars in the sky are now in full view. At no ...

In ancient times, people with exceptional vision discovered that one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper was, in fact, two stars so close together that most people cannot distinguish them. The ...

It was already known that Mizar actually consists of four stars (quadruple system): two sets of tightly orbiting binary stars. That is, Mizar A consists of two stars (binary stars) and Mizar B also ...