Ursa Major - Graphic Visualisation

Graphic Visualisation

In European star charts, the constellation was visualized with the 'square' of the Big Dipper forming the bear's body and the chain of stars as a long tail. However, bears do not have long tails, and Jewish astronomers considered Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid instead to be either three cubs following their mother, and the Native Americans as three hunters.

Noted children's book author H. A. Rey, in his 1952 book The Stars: A New Way to See Them, (ISBN 0-395-24830-2) instead had the "bear" image of the constellation, much as Johannes Hevelius had done (as far as the figure of the bear facing "left"), oriented with Alkaid as the tip of the bear's nose, and the "handle" of the Big Dipper part of the constellation forming the outline of the top of the bear's head and neck, rearwards to the shoulder. Because of Rey's book, many amateur astronomers have come to accept Rey's star chart interpretation of Ursa Major, dropping the idea of the Big Dipper's "handle" as being the hind end of the bear, with a non-natural "tail" extending rearwards.

• Ursa Major as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825.

• Johannes Hevelius drew Ursa Major as if being viewed from outside the celestial sphere.

• Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh

Ursa Major is also pictured as the Starry Plough the Irish Flag of Labour, adopted by James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army in 1916, which shows the constellation on a blue background.