Circumpolar Star - Explanation

Explanation

As Earth spins daily on its axis, the stars appear to rotate in circular paths around one of the celestial poles (the north celestial pole for observers in the northern hemisphere, or the south celestial pole for observers in the southern hemisphere). Stars far from a celestial pole appear to rotate in large circles; stars located very close to a celestial pole rotate in small circles and hence hardly seem to engage in any diurnal motion at all. Depending on the observer's latitude on Earth, some stars — the circumpolar ones — are close enough to the celestial pole to remain continuously above the horizon, while other stars dip below the horizon for some portion of their daily circular path (and others remain permanently below the horizon).

The circumpolar stars appear to lie within a circle that is centered at the celestial pole and tangential to the horizon. At the Earth's North Pole, the north celestial pole is directly overhead, and all stars that are visible at all (that is, all stars in the northern celestial hemisphere) are circumpolar. As one travels south, the north celestial pole moves towards the northern horizon. More and more stars that are at a distance from it begin to disappear below the horizon for some portion of their daily "orbit", and the circle containing the remaining circumpolar stars becomes increasingly small. At the Earth's equator this circle vanishes to a single point – the celestial pole itself – which lies on the horizon, and there are therefore effectively no circumpolar stars at all.

As one travels south of the equator the opposite happens. The south celestial pole appears increasingly high in the sky, and all the stars lying within an increasingly large circle centred on that pole become circumpolar about it. This continues until one reaches the Earth's South Pole where, once again, all visible stars are circumpolar.

The north celestial pole is located very close to the Pole star (Polaris or North Star), so, from the northern hemisphere all circumpolar stars appear to rotate around Polaris. Polaris itself remains almost stationary, always at the north (i.e., the azimuth is 0°), and always at the same altitude (angle from the horizon), equal to the latitude of the point of observation on Earth.