A celestial ladle....!!!

December 15th, 1997. It was a calm, quiet evening. The sun had made his way well beyond the horizon and the birds were returning to their nests, after a long day in search of food.
Not far away, at my home, the mood was frenzy, as it was my birthday and me and my brother were into preparations. My friends Satish, Subramaniam, Avinash and Vijay (my cousin brother, best pal and alter ego) were to come to my place and I was mentally occupied with the things to do to make the evening more colourful. Cake, Candles and Coke were ready and waiting to get in action. The stage was set and the ambience was refreshing. My parents gifted with a brand new Hercules MTB that day, which made me all the more cheerful.

From my verandah, I could descry some bicycles heading towards my path. And within minutes, I was surrounded by my pals, with each of them dressed up sprucely and eager to flaunt. I took them up to the first floor to my home. You can imagine how incessantly we were chatting with each other and having fun. We just had finished with our mid-term exams and were in a lighter mood. The mood to enjoy was not light though, it was filled with lots of enthusiasm and charm.

I lit off the lights and cut the cakes, followed by them singing the birthday wish and soon enough, we were munching cakes and sweets, with lots of chocolates and spicy mixture. "Fizzzzz........!!!" sounded the coke jar when I opened it and poured it out to glasses. We finished having them and now it was time for us to go to the terrace. It was a sky which was clear and surprisingly enough, there wasn't even a bit of haze, so usual to find on a December evening. The light breeze only made the visit more inviting and lively.

We cast our sight in to the illimitable sky and kept watching. The view was magnificent and made us more longing towards a stroll in the space. We had just learnt about different constellations and stars-clusters at the school and here we were with the sky showing up all its splendor and pulchritude. Satish and Vijay came along to spot Andromeda and we managed to catch "The Hunter" or more specifically, "The Orion". Rigel, a prominent star in this bunch, was shining in its full glitter and the other seven tried to overcome her flair, but in vain.

As we looked on, we reminded ourselves about the much-famed "Big Dipper" or "The Plough" as they call it in UK, "Sapta Rishi" (seven stars) in India or "The Casserole" (saucepan) in France. We were eager beavers when it came to explore and find things rather than rote-learning. Having said that, we continued to gaze but found it difficult to find the "Big" Dipper. One of us pointed out to the tiny kite-resembling cluster and mistook it to be the one. Our efforts notwithstanding, we never were able to spot it. Perhaps the fact that we never had any realistic clue of its size made it more difficult to find it. Riding on our bent to find it, we stood there thinking when one of us spotted two stars, far from each other though, joined by a thin trail which seemingly resembled a line. And when we were able to find another one and ultimately the entire bunch of them. How lovely it was to find one such beautiful constellation. It wasn't a small cluster, which is what made it all the more tough to spot. But once found, it was easily to be noticed again. Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar and Alkaid really combine well to form one of the most resplendent of the myriad clusters dazzling out there.

"The Big Dipper" is an asterism formed within a constellation called Ursa Major, one of the 88 officially recognized constellations. Being circumpolar, that is to mean never setting below the horizon, it is always visible in the northern skies. There are lots of different mythological stories and beliefs related to this constellation. And Greeks are the first people who come to mind when we think of myths. They have a strange story of Zeus swirling and throwing two bears, one big and one small into the sky to make them immortal and safe. The bigger and the smaller bears today are the parts of the constellations, Big and Small Dipper respectively. Some native Americans associated the colors of autumn leaves, poured out by the fall with the bowl upside down.

Keeping myths apart, Sapta Rishi has also been of tremendous help when it came to the concerns of sailors and navigators. Some of them were exact enough to predict the time of the night by watching the positions of Sapta Rishi. The charming constellation has also made things much simpler to those who search the star Polaris, or more commonly known as The Pole Star. It has been observed that the two stars of the constellation, the ones situated far away from the tail end of the dipper point towards the Polaris. Polaris being a fainter star is situated much farther (at about approximately five times the distance between the pointers themselves). And more surprisingly, North is more accurately marked by Polaris than the usual magnetic compass....

Alaska's provincial flag is more diaphanous to the above fact। And in Ireland, this constellation is known to be the political symbol. Hmm, the choosers of the symbol were pretty innovative and novel in that aspect. Of the seven stars, Mizar is the most closest to earth, at 78 light years and Dubhe is the most farthest at 124 light years. "The Big Dipper" has lent a cherubic presence to the night sky, it has been beautiful, helpful and charismatic. I had a splendid time on my birthday, and we all had the actual look at the stars and groups about which we learnt in the text-books. It was as if as we had been taken on a space ride. The experience was simply, fascinating...!!!!