Located near the North Pole of the world, the Polaris is part of the constellation of the Little Bear. These constellations also belong to the circle of circumpolar constellations. In our latitudes, they are uninterrupted, i.e. visible throughout the night. In addition to the Little Bear, these are the Big Bear, the Dragon, Cassiopeia, Cepheus and Giraffe.
The most famous of the constellations of this group is certainly the Big Bear. In my opinion, everybody knows its bucket of seven stars, even people who are sometimes far from astronomy. The Big Bear is also one of the largest constellations in the sky - it occupies about 1280 square degrees. It includes 125 stars visible to the naked eye (i.e. up to 6 stars). The constellation is very ancient and has the same name in most peoples of the world, including the American Indians.
The Big Bear has many interesting foggy objects, there are double stars suitable for observation in amateur instruments.
If we draw a straight line through the two outermost stars of the bucket - Alpha (Dubhe) and Beta (Merak) - and set aside five distances between the stars, we will find the second-largest star - the famous Polar Star, the Alpha Little Bear. Nearby is the North Pole of the world. In the way described above, we can successfully orientate ourselves on the terrain - because the mental projection of the sky pole on the horizon line will give us the point of the north - the direction to the north.
The Little Bear was also known to people from the distant past. The small bucket of five stars when moving during the night describes the circle around the sky pole. This constellation is quite compact - 256 square degrees in area and it includes only 20 stars visible to the naked eye.
If we continue the straight line along which we were looking for the polar star a little further, then somewhere else in a couple of the same delayed distances between the Alpha and the Beta Bear, we will find the constellation of Cepheus. According to the legend, this is the king of Ethiopia, one of the heroes of the myth of Perseus and Andromeda, which Zeus ascended to heaven. The main group of Zephya's stars resembles an inverted house. This constellation contains about 60 stars brighter than the sixth size and occupies an area of 588 degrees. The constellation has interesting double and variable stars.
On ancient maps, the constellation of Cepheus was marked as follows
His wife Cassiopeia's a little out of the way. A characteristic figure in the form of an inverted letter M or W is immediately striking. In this constellation of 90 stars visible to the naked eye, there are many interesting objects to observe. The constellation is particularly rich in scattered clusters. In the area, it is almost equal to Cepheus - 598 square degrees.
In ancient atlases, the queen of Egypt was depicted sitting on the throne.
To find the most inconspicuous of the constellations of the circumpolar region of the sky - Giraffe, the poor bright stars, it is necessary to hold a straight line between the stars of the delta and Cassiopeia epsilon and between Cassiopeia and the Big Bear will be found the desired constellation. The giraffe appeared on star charts in the era of geographical discoveries. It was first shown on a star map in the atlas of Barcius in 1624. The constellation is quite large, with 757 square degrees, and only 50 stars available to the naked eye.
The last of the constellations of our story today is the Dragon, which stretches as far as 1083 square degrees, winding around the pole of the world and the Little Bear. There are both interesting double and foggy objects in it. Find the head of the Dragon, represented by a quadrangle of stars of the gamut, beta Dragon and two weaker, you can put the perpendicular to the base in our review of the search line in the area of Polyarnaya. The Dragon has 80 stars visible to the naked eye. By the way, the Dragon is an example of one of the constellations where the alpha is not the brightest in the constellation. Here it was inferior to other letters of the Greek alphabet - its luster is only 3.7 links. And the brightest in the constellation of the Dragon gamma (Etamine) has a shine of 2.2 stars.
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