Ursa Major best-known patterns in the sky. Like many of its common names allude to, its shape is said to resemble either a ladle, an agricultural plough or wagon; in the context of Ursa Major, they are commonly drawn to represent the hindquarters and tail of the Great Bear. Starting with the "ladle" portion of the dipper and extending clockwise (eastward in the sky) through the handle, these stars are the following: Except for Dubhe and Alkaid, the stars of the Big Dipper all have proper motions heading toward a common point in Sagittarius. A few other such stars have been identified,
Ursa Major has been reconstructed as an Indo-European constellation. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century AD astronomer Ptolemy in his "Almagest", who called it Arktos Megale. It is mentioned by such poets as Homer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Federico Garcia Lorca (in "Song for the Moon"). The Finnish epic Kalevala mentions it, Vincent van Gogh painted it. In 2009, the American rock band Third Eye Blind named their fourth album, "Ursa Major", after the constellation. It may be mentioned in the biblical book of Job, dated between the 7th and 4th centuries BC, although this is