I haven't used my ZenithStar 61 for a few weeks and I didn't have the energy to bring out the AVX and the FLT 91.  So I settled on my smaller and much lighter rig and just spent time imaging Stars.

Alioth, also known as Epsilon Ursae Majoris, is the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Major, and the brightest of the seven stars of the Big Dipper. It also shares the 31st place as the brightest star in the night sky with Alnitak.

Alioth formed around 300 million years ago from a molecular cloud of gas and dust. The gravity pulled the swirling gas and dust together to form the brightest star of the Ursa Major constellation. Alioth is also a member of the Ursa Major Moving Group of Stars, it is a large diffuse group of stars that share a common origin, and a large common motion across the sky.

Alioth is located at around 82.6 light-years / 25.3 parsecs away from our Sun. This star is almost three times more massive than our sun, with an estimated 2.91 solar masses.

Alioth has a radius of around 4.14 times that of our sun, its diameter is suspected to be at least 8 times bigger. This means that the star should also be around 8 times bigger than our sun.

Alioth is classified as  A1IIIV-IVp Kb9 – meaning it is a white or blue-white, giant of subgiant star with a peculiar spectrum. kB9 – means that there are calcium K lines in its spectrum. The star’s apparent magnitude is 1.77 while its absolute magnitude is -0.2.It is a variable star of type Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum. These stars are chemically peculiar, still on the main sequence and have strong magnetic fields and strontium, silicon or chromium spectral lines. These spectral lines along with the magnetic fields vary, and so does its brightness – the periods of their variations are theorized to correspond to their rotational orbit.This means that Alioth is actually the brightest peculiar class A star in the night sky. Its magnetic field separates different elements in the star’s hydrogen supply and thus its axis of rotation is positioned at an angle to its magnetic axis and it is believed that it is spinning different elements into different regions that come in and out of sight as it rotates.As the elements spin, they react differently and as a result, the star’s spectral lines are fluctuating during its rotation period. Alioth’s rotational and magnetic poles are positioned at around 90-degrees angle to one another. 

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