Spring Stargazing

Spring is an exciting season both on the ground and in the sky. Here on Earth, the cold, barren days of winter are coming to an end. Life returns to the land as the season's warmth bathes newly blossomed trees and flowers, while our view of the night sky reveals several bright stars and many more faint points of light.

Spring is the best time to see what is one of the sky's best-known figures, the Big Dipper. Passing nearly overhead, the Dipper is formed by four stars (named Megrez, Dubhe, Merak, and Phecda) marking its cup and three others (Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid) denoting its crooked handle.

The Big Dipper by itself is not an official constellation, but instead is part of the much larger star picture of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The bowl stars form the Bear's back and belly. From the star Dubhe, faint stars extending westward from the bowl make up the Bear's neck and head, while five stars curve below (to the south) to form one of its front paws. Extending below (to the south of) the bowl star Phecda are other faint stars that represent its hind legs.

Night Lines
By drawing a line from the star Merak through Dubhe in the Dipper's bowl and extending it to the north, you will come to Polaris, the North Star. Many people are under the mistaken impression that the North Star is the brightest star in the night sky, but in fact, there are 48 that are brighter! What makes the North Star special is that, right now, Earth's north polar axis is aimed almost directly at it. As a result, Polaris remains fixed in the night sky, while all other stars appear to rotate around it.

Polaris is at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper. Just as the Big Dipper is part of larger Ursa Major, so too is the Little Dipper part of the Small Bear, Ursa Minor. Be it a Bear or a Dipper, trying to find all seven stars shown on the map requires dark skies and good eyes as they are all quite faint. If the entire Little Dipper can be seen, then the sky is exceptionally free of haze and extraneous lights.

Return to the Big Dipper's bowl and extend a line from Megrez through Phecda southward to Regulus, the brightest star in Leo the Lion. According to legend, Regulus marks the Lion's heart. Above Regulus are five stars that combine to form the Lion's head, though today, they remind us more of a sickle or a backward question mark. The body of Leo stretches out to the left (east), with the animal's hindquarters and tail represented by a triangle of stars.

Continue the line from the Dipper through Regulus, and further toward the southern horizon. There lies another bright star, Alphard, and its constellation, Hydra. Hydra was a horrific, many-headed serpent that inhabited the swamps of Lerna, Greece. After a long list of failed attempts, the mighty warrior Hercules successfully slew Hydra by killing each head individually. The sky's Hydra has but one head, formed by a small trapezoid of faint stars to Alphard's northwest. The Hydra's long but very faint body winds its way along the southern horizon. From head to tail, Hydra stretches a full third of the way around the sky, making it the longest constellation of all.