Big Dipper Stars

There are 7 main stars in the Big Dipper. The name of every second star begins with an “M”:

1. Dubhe
2. Merak
3. Phecda (Phad)
4. Megrez
5. Alioth
6. Mizar
7. Alkaid

Here is how to say the names of the 7 main Dipper stars:

NAME	PRONUNCIATION
Dubhe α	DOO-buh or DOO-bay (bay as in “play”)
Merak β	MEH-rack (MEH-rack, sounds like “Eric’s racquet”)
Phecda (Phad) γ	FEK-dah (FEK also like the “eh” sound in “Eric”, dah as in “Ma and Pa”) also known as Phad (FAHD as in “fog”)
Megrez δ	MEG-rehz (MEG as in “peg” or “beg”, rehz as in “he says”)
Alioth ε	A-lee-auth (A as in “at”, “auth” as in “author”)
Mizar ζ	MY-zar (MY as in Myron)
Alkaid η	AL-kayd (AL as in “Alan”, kayd as in “played” or “arcade”)

You can hear those names pronounced at: http://www.starrynighteducation.com/resources_pronunciation.html

Memorize those names so that you can say them back in that order: Dubhe, Merak, Phad, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, Alkaid.

Next, learn their Bayer Designations. Those have Greek letters in the same order from alpha through epsilon:

Proper Name	Bayer Designation	Apparent Magnitude	Distance (Light Years)
Dubhe	α UMa	1.8	124
Merak	β UMa	2.4	79
Phecda or Phad	γ UMa	2.4	84
Megrez	δ UMa	3.3	81
Alioth	ε UMa	1.8	81
Mizar	ζ UMa	2.1	78
Alkaid	η UMa	1.9	101

So what you should get to know from the above is:

• The name of each star. (This is not nice to say, but if you think “DUMP MAMA” that gives you the first letters of the stars in order, as long as you dump the “U”.)
• The Greek letters from alpha through eta: α alpha, β beta, γ gamma, δ delta, ε epsilon, ζ zeta, η eta.
• The “Bayer Designation” of each star. Johann Bayer was a German astronomer who, in year 1603, published a list of 1564 stars. He did not have names for all those stars. Instead of names his list used Greek letters and the names of the constellations they were in. You should learn the Greek letters. The ones shown above are: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta. The constellation we have here is “UMa”, an abbreviation for Ursa Major. Ursa means bear and major means big. The stars in the list above are the brightest stars in Ursa major but not in order of brightness. Instead they are in order running from the outer lip of the Big Dipper’s bowl down to the end of the handle. I think this is the best place to start learning stars and you’ll see why later. When we write a program, I think it should start describing these, and then should present a quiz. When a user does well enough on the quiz they can go to the next step.
• (I don’t think it pays at this point to memorize the apparent magnitude or the distance. Apparent magnitude is how bright the star looks to us; absolute magnitude is how bright the star would look if you were closer to it... 32.6 light years, or 10 parsecs, away. A very far star might have a very high absolute magnitude but still seem very dim when seen from Earth).
• Phad and Phecda are alternative names for the same star. The Stellarium program shows “Phad”, although if you search for Phecda (with Function-3) you will reach the same star.

If I were you I would memorize all those names in order from top to bottom and be able to say them back in that order along with the Greek letters in their Bayer Designation.

Question: what’s special about the combination of Dubhe and Merak?