Generalities: it is perhaps one of the best known constellations, for its richness of bright stars and the typical figure of the “Big Dipper", formed by its seven brightest stars. The transit at midnight takes place in May.

Origins and mythology: this constellation represents Callisto, the beautiful daughter of the king of Arcadia. Zeus had a relationship with her, from which Arcade was born. Callisto was transformed into a she-bear, to avoid Juno’s angers. Her child Arcade is represented  by the Little Bear instead. In fact her child, during a shooting party, tried to strike a bear ignoring that it was his mother. To avoid this, Zeus transformed both of them into constellations. The term Arctic takes root in this constellation: in fact in Greek arctos points out  the she-bear.

Stars: even if the Big Bear  has no stars of the first magnitude, it  has a lot of bright stars. The seven brightest ones form the Big Dipper. The brightest is Alioth, the most internal of the rudder, of magnitude 1.77. The other stars of the Wagon are Dubhe, orange, Merak, of white color, Phekda,  white, Megrez, the weakest, Mizar, a splendid double star, visible also  with a small telescope and Alkaid, blue. Next to Mizar is  Alcor, a starlet of magnitude 4.01, visible with a naked eye. Out of the figure of the Big Dipper there are then other stars under magnitude 4 . There are three stars under magnitude two, other three under  magnitude 3 and  13 under  magnitude 4 altogether.
 
 

Star	Proper name	Magnitude	Spectrum	Colour	Distance (light-years)	Notes
Epsilon	Alioth	1.77	A0	white	62
Alpha	Dubhe	1.79	K0	orange	75
Eta	Alkaid	1.86	B3	blue	108
Zeta	Mizar	2.09	A2+A6	white	58	Visual double star
Beta	Merak	2.37	A1	white	62
Gamma	Phekda	2.44	A0	white	75
Psi		3.01	K1	orange	120
Mu	Tania Australis	3.05	M0	red	156
Iota	Talita	3.14	A7	white	49
Theta		3.17	F6	white-yellow	46
Delta	Megrez	3.31	A3	white	65
Omicron	Muscida	3.36	G4	yellow	231
Lambda	Tania Borealis	3.45	A2	white	120
Nu	Alula Borealis	3.48	K3	orange	150

Other objects: in the Big Bear  two beautiful galaxies are present, very close to each other and observable with  binoculars, provided that the sky is dark: M81 and M82. A third weaker galaxy is named M101. Moreover in this constellation there is a planetary nebula, catalogued by Messier as M97, said Owl Nebula.

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