Where are the North Star and Big Dipper?
Ok, first you have to figure out where north is and face that way. (Hint: Fuertes is on the eastern edge of NORTH Campus. In which direction is the Arts Quad? Further hint, if it’s early in the evening: where did the Sun set, and what’s the relationship between that direction and north?) Once you’re facing north, look up not quite halfway between the horizon and directly overhead. There will be a medium-bright star situated in a somewhat empty area of the sky. That’s Polaris, the North Star. The Big Dipper, which is only part of the constellation Ursa Major (the Big Bear), will be somewhere nearby—where, exactly, will depend upon the time of year and time of night, but it is always above the horizon (it is “circumpolar”) as seen from Ithaca. The two stars that form the edge of the bowl of the Big Dipper farthest from the handle point almost but not exactly at Polaris. By the way, Polaris is not always the North Star. In fact, at times there is no “North Star”. The Earth spins like a to
