What are like Alcor and Mizar?

Answer 1

Alcor and Mizar are an optical pair. They are not actually close to each other, but just happen to be in the same direction. Alcor is actually much farther away than Mizar.

But from our point of view they appear to be together. (a very nice illusion)

As someone has pointed out they are called the horse and rider, but another little tidbit of trivia is that in the early days of seamanship, a sailor's vision was considered acceptable if he could see Alcor and Mizar as two seperate stars.

Answer 2

ALCOR (80 Ursae Majoris). Alcor, forever tied to Mizar, is hardly ever spoken of unless as "Mizar and Alcor," a naked eye double in the tail of Ursa Major that the Arabs referred to as the horse and rider. The name Alcor, however, was stolen from that for Alioth. Both come from an Arabic word that means the "black horse." The term was distorted in different ways as it was applied to each of the two stars. Oddly, the "rider" of the pair is the one with the name of the "horse," "Mizar" referring not to a horse but to the "groin" of the Great Bear. A great many stars with Bayer Greek letter names have no proper names. Alcor is one of the very few in reverse, a star that has a proper names but no Greek letter name. Instead, it is referred to as 80 Ursae Majoris.

Answer 3

alcor and mizar are like stars in the constellation of like ursa major

Answer 4

Here is a picture of Ursa Major

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/uma-p.html

Mizar and Alcor are double stars in the tail of this constellation
http://www.backyard-astro.com/deepsky/top100/07.html
http://jumk.de/astronomie/special-stars/mizar-alcor.shtml

Answer 5

The most famous and easiest of all double stars are Mizor and Alcor in Ursa Major

Answer 6

There are several double stars that have wide enough separation to see without a telescope, if you have good eyes. See the source.