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A star chart of the entire Northern Sky, centered on the north celestial pole. The northern celestial hemisphere, also called the Northern Sky, is the northern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies north of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere appears to rotate westward around a polar axis due to Earth's rotation.
It is designated α Ursae Minoris (Latinized to Alpha Ursae Minoris) and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude that fluctuates around 1.98, [3] it is the brightest star in the constellation and is readily visible to the naked eye at night. [15]
The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to observers at Earth's North Pole and South Pole, respectively. As Earth spins on its axis, the two celestial poles remain fixed in the sky, and all other celestial points appear to rotate around them, completing one circuit per day (strictly, per sidereal day ).
Gerardus Mercator's map of the North Pole from 1595 C.G. Zorgdragers map of the North Pole from 1720 As early as the 16th century, many prominent people correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea, which in the 19th century was called the Polynya or Open Polar Sea . [ 7 ]
Precession will eventually point the north celestial pole nearer the stars in the constellation Hercules, pointing towards Tau Herculis around 18,400 AD. [13] The celestial pole will then return to the stars in constellation Draco (Thuban, mentioned above) before returning to the current constellation, Ursa Minor.
The other two cover the equatorial region of the celestial sphere, from the declination of 30° south to 30° north. The two equatorial charts are mercator projections, one for the eastern hemisphere of the celestial sphere and one for the western hemisphere. Note that unlike familiar maps, east is shown to the left and west is shown to the right.
All circumpolar constellations fully-visible from the North Pole See also: Category:Southern constellations and Category:Equatorial constellations Subcategories
Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. The north pole of the ecliptic is in Draco. [1]