The Beauty of Gods Creation ~ The Big Dipper Psalm 147:4 ~ He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Isaiah 40:26 ~ Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. History and mythology of the celestial Bears. The Big Dipper is really an asterism – a star pattern that is NOT a constellation. The Big Dipper is a clipped version of the constellation Ursa Major the Big Bear, these Big Dipper stars outlining the Bear’s tail and hindquarters. In the star lore of the Micmacs in Canada, the Big Dipper is also associated with a bear but with a different twist. The Micmacs see the Big Dipper bowl as Celestial Bear, and the 3 stars of the handle as hunters chasing the Bear. The starry sky serves as a calendar and a story book, as is beautifully illustrated by the Micmac tale of Celestial Bear. In autumn, the hunters finally catch up with the Bear, and it’s said that the blood from the Bear colors the autmn landscape. In another version of the story, Celestial bear hits its nose when coming down to Earth, with its bloody nose giving color to autumn leaves. When Celestial Bear is seen right on the northern horizon on late fall and early winter evenings, it’s a sure sign that the hibernation season is upon us. The Little Dipper is also an asterism, these stars belonging to the constellation Ursa Minor the Little Bear. In ancient times, the Little Dipper formed the wings of the constellation Draco the Dragon. But when the seafaring Phoenicians met with the Greek astronomer Thales around 600 B.C., they showed him how to use the Little Dipper stars to navigate. Thereby, Thales clipped Draco’s wings, to create a new constellation that gave Greek sailors a new way to steer by the stars. In Thales’s day, the stars Kochab and Pherkad (rather than Polaris) marked the approximate direction of the north celestial pole – the point in the sky that is directly above the Earth’s North Pole.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 04:53:06 +0000