More components of the Mizar system were discovered with the advent of the telescope and spectroscopy; a fine, easily-split visual target, Mizar was the first telescopic binary discovered—most probably by Benedetto Castelli who in 1617 asked Galileo Galilei to observe it.
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Of incidental note, the popular Japanese manga, Fist of the North Star, used this legend as a model for its death omen star (死兆星), in which it was said that people who saw the star would die later in the year.