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Diagram caption: The constellation Ursa Minor along with its bright stars and its surrounding constellations. Ursa Minor is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Cephus, Camelopardalis and Draco. Ursa Minor is notable as its brightest star, Polaris is the northern pole star.

Ursa Minor is visible from the entire northern hemisphere with some parts of the constellation being visible from equatorial regions of the southern hemisphere. It is also circumpolar for temperate and arctic regions of the northern hemisphere. Polaris, lying very close the north celestial pole is circumpolar for the whole of the northern hemisphere. The constellation is most visible in the evenings in the northern hemisphere summer and southern hemisphere winter.

This diagram maps an area around the north celestial pole. Here lines of constant right ascension converge. The right ascension values (in hours) of these lines are marked on the x-axis above and below the diagram. Some of the lines of constant declination (in degrees) are marked on the y-axis. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.

Diagram credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope. Credit Link

Diagram license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons

Related glossary terms: Apparent Magnitude , Celestial Coordinates , Circumpolar Stars , Constellation , Declination , North Celestial Pole (NCP) , Polaris , Right Ascension (RA)
Categories: Naked Eye Astronomy

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