Ephemeris: 06/04/2024 – Finding the Little Dipper

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 4th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 9:24, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:58. The Moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 4:51 tomorrow morning.

One of the constellations I don’t talk about much, except in passing is Ursa Minor, the Little Bear with an impossibly long tail. It is better known as the Little Dipper. As a dipper goes, its handle is bent the wrong way, like someone stepped on it. Anyway, this time of year in the evening, it’s standing on the tip of it’s handle, which is the North Star, Polaris. Polaris is pointed to by the front two stars of the Big Dipper. As dippers go they pour their contents into each other. The second and third-brightest stars of the Little Dipper are at the front of the bowl, and are Kochab and Pherkad, the Guard Stars, that is, Guardians of the Pole. To the Anishinaabe native peoples of our area the Little Dipper is Maang, the Loon.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

We’re looking at the Little Dipper and Big Dipper although they’re called Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. . The animated GIF has four frames. The first is the starfield as seen in the sky. Second is the constellation lines for Ursa Minor (Little Dipper) and Ursa Major (containing the Big Dipper). We then see the images drawn as part of Stellarium for the constellations. And finally the images I’ve created for the Anishinaabe constellations Ojiig the Fisher and Maang the Loon.

These are the named stars in Ursa Major/Little Dipper. Created using Stellarium.