Merak
HR 4295 · HIP 53910 · β UMa
👁️ Naked-eye
📋 A written introduction is coming — for now this page shows official values only.
Star
- Apparent magnitude
- 2.37 mag
- Parallax
- 40.9 mas → about 79.7 light-years away
- Spectral type
- A1V
- Right ascension
- 165.4603°
- Declination
- 56.3824°
- Designation
- HR 4295
- Bayer designation
- β UMa
- HIP number
- 53910
- IAU name adopted
- 2016-06-30
- Name language
- Arabic
- Name origin (IAU)
- Applied in recent times from an abbreviation of its name for the Arabic Almagest period maraqq al-dubb al-akbar, "the Flank (or Groin) of the Greater Bear."
Source:IAU Working Group on Star Names · checked 2026-11-02 ↗ESA Hipparcos Catalogue (ESA Gaia Archive) · checked 2026-11-03 ↗
Related
Constellation
In everyday life
- Light from this object takes about 80 years to reach Earth — the light you see tonight left around AD 1946 (official distance ÷ speed of light).
- At magnitude 2.4 it is bright enough for the naked eye (limit about 6) — look from somewhere dark.
- Declination 56.4° — from Seoul (37.6° N) it never sets and circles the northern sky all night.
Worked out from this object's official values.