Ursa Major

Ursa Major is a Northern Hemisphere constellation otherwise known as the Great Bear. It is one of the 48 Greek constellations originally described by the 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (Wikipedia). Ursa Major remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).

Ursa Major (abbrev. = UMa; genitive = Ursae Majoris) covers 1280 square degrees or 3.10% of the celestial sphere making it the 3rd largest constellation. It contains 209 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Alioth.

For more information see the entries for Ursa Major at Wikipedia and U. Wisconsin. For a chart of Ursa Major, see UMa (IAU).


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