Nu Ursae Majoris
Nu Ursae Majoris, formally named Alula Borealis, is a double star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Major. At an apparent visual magnitude of +3.490, it is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. Based upon parallax measurements, the distance to ν Ursae Majoris is about.
This is a giant star with a stellar classification of K3 III. It has expanded to about 57 times the radius of the Sun and is radiating 775 times the Sun's luminosity. The effective temperature of the outer envelope is 4,070 K; cool enough to give it an orange hue typical of a K-type star. It has a 10th-magnitude optical companion at an angular separation of 7.1 arcseconds.Nomenclature
ν Ursae Majoris is the star's Bayer designation.
It also bore the traditional name of Alula Borealis. Alula comes from the Arabic phrase Al Ḳafzah al Ūla 'the First Spring'. and Borealis is Latin for 'the north side'. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN; which included Alula Borealis for this star.
In Chinese, 三台, meaning Three Steps, refers to an asterism consisting of Nu Ursae Majoris, Iota Ursae Majoris, Kappa Ursae Majoris, Lambda Ursae Majoris, Mu Ursae Majoris, and Xi Ursae Majoris. Consequently, the Chinese name for Nu Ursae Majoris itself is 下台一.
