Science & history · Constellation guide
Ursa Minor, the Little Bear
Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, holds Polaris at the tip of its tail. Its seven main stars make a smaller, fainter ladle, the Little Dipper, that turns around the pole all night.
About this picture
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC. Constellation figures based on those developed for the IAU by Alan MacRobert of Sky and Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg). NASA's page (opens in a new tab).
The map is a composite of 1.7 billion catalogued stars, not a photograph from one place: it shows stars far too faint for the eye, and no weather, Moon or city light. It is drawn here in this chart's projection, with each star where it was in 2000; the fastest-moving bright star has shifted about a minute of arc since, far less than a pixel here.
How to spot it: Polaris is the end of the Little Dipper's handle. Source (opens in a new tab)
The Little Dipper
Seven stars in a small ladle, with Polaris at the end of the handle and two brighter ‘guardians’ at the bowl.
Ptolemy counted seven stars in the Little Bear (opens in a new tab), four in the body and three in the tail, and Polaris is the end of the tail, or of the Little Dipper's handle. Two stars of the bowl, Kochab and Pherkad, are sometimes called the Guards or Guardians of the Pole; the Arabs knew them as al-farqadān, the two calves.
Apart from Polaris, Kochab and Pherkad, its stars are fourth magnitude or fainter, by this site's reading of the catalogue (opens in a new tab). Light pollution (opens in a new tab) hides stars that faint from many town and city skies, so often only Polaris and the two guardians are left.
Sources for this section Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Ursa Minor (opens in a new tab); Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab); Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Check Your Sky Quality with Orion!, NASA Night Sky Network (2023) (opens in a new tab)
How to find it
Find Polaris first, from the Big Dipper's pointers, and the Little Dipper curves away from it.
The two pointer stars of the Big Dipper (opens in a new tab) lead to Polaris, the tip of the Little Dipper's handle. From there the handle curves to the bowl, whose brightest corner is Kochab.
By this site's calculation (opens in a new tab), the Little Bear's middle stands about 51° up in the north at its highest from 40°N. It is circumpolar from most of the Northern Hemisphere and never rises from most of the Southern; the computed block gives the exact latitudes.
Keep in mind The Pleiades are also a small dipper shape, almost dipper-shaped (opens in a new tab) in NASA's words, but they are a tight cluster in Taurus, far from the pole. The Taurus guide sets the two apart.
Sources for this section Preston Dyches, What is the North Star and How Do You Find It?, NASA Science (2021, updated 2024) (opens in a new tab); Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab); Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Spot the Young Stars of the Hyades and Pleiades, NASA Night Sky Network (2023) (opens in a new tab)
The sailors' bear
The Greeks said the Phoenicians steered by the Little Bear, and it gave English the word ‘cynosure’.
The Greeks credited Thales of Miletus (opens in a new tab), who lived about 625–545 BC, with first naming the Little Bear; the poet Callimachus wrote that Thales measured out the little stars of the Wain by which the Phoenicians sail. Homer, two centuries earlier, mentions only the Great Bear.
Aratus pointed out that although the Little Bear is smaller and fainter (opens in a new tab), it lies closer to the pole and so is the better guide to true north.
Aratus also called it Kynosoura, Greek for “dog's tail” (opens in a new tab), the origin of the English word cynosure, a guiding star. Tycho Brahe's catalogue of 1602 still used Cynosura as another name for the constellation.
Sources for this section Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Ursa Minor (opens in a new tab)
Where on Earth, and when
The whole key pattern rises from anywhere north of about 1°S.
South of about 18°S, none of it rises.
North of about 18°N, the whole key pattern never sets.
Its middle climbs at least 20° high, the finder's threshold for a suggestion, from anywhere north of about 9°N.
It is highest in the evening sky, at about 9 p.m. local time, in mid-June, from either hemisphere, wherever it rises. With daylight saving time, that is nearer 10 p.m. on the clock.
Worked out by this site from the Bright Star Catalogue, for a flat, clear horizon. Hills, buildings, haze and city light all cut into this; the air also lifts objects near the horizon by about half a degree. For your own place and night, use the sky finder.
Sources
- History Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Ursa Minor (opens in a new tab) for the figure, the guardians, Thales, the Phoenicians, Aratus and cynosure · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Check Your Sky Quality with Orion!, NASA Night Sky Network (2023) (opens in a new tab) for light pollution and faint stars · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Preston Dyches, What is the North Star and How Do You Find It?, NASA Science (2021, updated 2024) (opens in a new tab) for finding Polaris · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Spot the Young Stars of the Hyades and Pleiades, NASA Night Sky Network (2023) (opens in a new tab) for the Pleiades' dipper shape · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab) for the magnitudes of its stars and its height from 40°N
