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Far from any lights, the sky fills with stars. Gold lines: the Big Dipper. Drawn from real star positions; bigger dots are brighter stars. See it from a city or the suburbs in the app.

✨ Constellation

Ursa Major

The Great Bear, home of the Big Dipper.

Name means: The Great Bear
Best seen: April evenings
Where to see it: The northern half of Earth, and the tropics south of the equator
Brightest star: Alioth
Stars in the pattern: 20

Shapes to look for

The Big Dipper (also called the Plough). Follow the two stars at the end of its bowl, Merak and then Dubhe, and they point to Polaris, the North Star.

Did you know?

Its seven brightest stars form the Big Dipper, also called the Plough, or the Saptarishi in India.
The two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl point straight to Polaris, the North Star.

In this part of the sky

Ursa Minor The Little Bear, with Polaris at the tip of its tail.

More NASA photos of Ursa MajorStraight from NASA’s image library, in the app

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All of night sky

Orion The Hunter, with three bright stars in a row for his belt. Ursa Minor The Little Bear, with Polaris at the tip of its tail. Cassiopeia A bright W of five stars, named after a boastful queen. Scorpius The Scorpion, with red Antares at its heart. Leo The Lion, whose head is a backwards question mark of stars. Taurus The Bull, with red Aldebaran as its glowing eye.

Facts: Star patterns: d3-celestial (IAU figures, Hipparcos star data). Stories: traditional Greek and Roman myths. Open Ursa Major in the app.