Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column. July 9: Venus stands above Regulus Look north ...

This week’s naked-eye object is an optical double star in Ursa Major. At the bend of the Big Dipper’s handle, you’ll find magnitude 2.4 Mizar (Zeta [ζ] Ursae Majoris) and magnitude 4.0 Alcor (80 Ursae ...

Alcor is a binary system, too, accompanied by a 9th-magnitude red dwarf partner set just 1″ away. Through a telescope, you might also notice a faint star forming a broad triangle with Alcor and Mizar.

Mizar, a star in the Big Dipper's handle, has a tiny companion. This star, Alcor, was known to the ancients. The pair was popularly known as the "Horse and Rider." When you purchase through links on ...

In ancient times, people with exceptional vision discovered that one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper was, in fact, two stars so close together that most people cannot distinguish them. The ...