Pole Star

“ Equipped with this modern knowledge, I have, returning through the little death from my earlier lives, been able to compare the heavens then and now. And the stars do change. I have seen pole stars and pole stars and dynasties of pole stars. The pole star today is in Ursa Minor. Yet in those far days I have seen the pole star in Draco, in Hercules, in Vega, in Cygnus, and in Cepheus. No, not even the stars abide, and yet the memory and the knowledge of them abides in me, in the spirit of me that is memory and that is eternal. Only spirit abides. ”

“ If amazed at the apparition our tourist thus transported back in time turned to get his bearings from the north, not less astonished would he be to discover his old friend the pole-star unaccountably gone. Even the learned might experience a shock. Certainly to those who drink in their star-knowledge through the medium of the Dipper would it prove disconcerting to find Polaris adrift in the sky. ”

“ The Pole-star is really the most important of the stars in our sky; it marks the north at all times; it alone is fixed in the heavens: all the other stars seem to swing around it once in twenty-four hours. It is in the end of the Little Bear's tail. But the Pole-star, or Polaris, is not a very bright one, and it would be hard to identify but for the help of the Dipper, or Pointers. ”

“ The star Septentrion is, for the peoples of the North and above all for the shepherd, the seaman and the wayfarer, the star of stars. A hundred legends embody its mystery, its steadfast incalculable service, its unswerving isolation over the Pole. Polaris, the North Star, the Pole-Star, the Lodestar, the Seaman’s Star, the Star of the Sea, the Gate of Heaven, Phœnice, Cynosure, how many names, in all languages, at all times. ”

“ Patiently the astronomer centres that little circle around which the pole-star sheds its guiding light, that he may adjust his instrument to parallelism with the axis of a revolving world. But since that light left its source at the pole-star, a child has grown through youth to manhood, and in his hair the gray of silver lines has begun to develop under the cares of six-and-thirty years. And these are only our nearest neighbors among the stars! ”

“ But when we turn a telescope upon the sky we begin to count stars by millions.
All the stars are in apparent motion; they have their rising and their setting as does the sun; the constellations appear above the horizon, and move swiftly down the sky. Only one star is, as viewed from our world, immovable, remaining forever fixed in its place; we call it the North Star, or the Pole Star, because to us of the Northern hemisphere it seems to be always watching above the Northern Pole. ”

“ The Pole Star itself belongs to another inconsiderable group of stars known as the Little Bear. The two principal members of this group, next in brightness to the Pole Star, are sometimes called the "Guards." The Great Bear and the Little Bear, with the Pole Star, form a group in the northern sky not paralleled by any similarly situated constellation in the southern heavens. At the South Pole there is no conspicuous star to indicate its position approximately—a circumstance disadvantageous to astronomers and navigators in the southern hemisphere. ”

“ However apocryphal these stories may have been, they certainly had a basis of truth, and the impressions then produced upon my mind concerning the character of Polaris as the sure friend of those who are lost and in trouble have remained undimmed in my memory. What a triumph will be that of the man who first visits the north pole by night, and sees that star gleaming directly over his head, while all the constellations solemnly circle about it, unresting and unsetting! ”

“ Reflection clearly shows that pole-star worship must have taken a stronger hold upon the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia and their descendants, the seafaring Vikings, than upon any other nation. We are compelled to admit that the recognition that Polaris formed the centre of axial rotation and the middle of the sky, would have impressed itself most profoundly upon observers stationed in the latitude where winter darkness prevailed and the pole-star appeared to be nearly overhead. ”

“ This Pole Star and its ascension are sensible things. The further one goes toward the Pole, the higher the Pole Star rises; from these two known truths an unknown thing has been discovered—that is, that the horizon is curved, meaning that the horizon of each degree of the earth is a different horizon from that of another degree. Man perceives this and proves from it an invisible thing which is the roundness of the earth. This it is impossible for the animal to perceive. In the same way, it cannot understand that the sun is the center and that the earth revolves around it. ”

“ A traveller, lost on a desert plain, feels that the recognition of one star, the Pole star, is of itself a great acquisition; and all persons who, like mariners and soldiers, are left much with the companionship of the stars, only learn to know the prominent clusters, even if they do not know the names given to them in books. ”

“ The extremities of these uprights, or the axis of the upraised tube, would lie in a north-and-south line considerably inclined to the horizon, because the pole itself being thirty degrees above the horizon, the Pole-star, whatever star this might be, would be high above the horizon even when exactly under the pole. No star so far from the pole as to pass close to the horizon would be of use even for the work of [Pg 106] orientation, while for the work of obtaining the latitude it would be absolutely essential that a star close to the pole should be used. ”

“ The earth’s axis, continued indefinitely upwards, meets the sphere in a point called the Celestial Pole. This point in our middle latitudes is between the zenith and the north horizon, near a certain star of the second magnitude familiarly known as the Pole Star. As the earth revolves from west to east the celestial sphere appears to us to revolve in the opposite direction, turning on the line joining the Celestial Poles as on a pivot. ”

“ It is unnecessary for me to lay further stress upon the obvious facts: that the only celestial body which could possibly have been associated with a seated form, suggesting repose, was Polaris. It is, moreover, only by assuming that the sign of the seated star represents the stationary pole-star that its combination in the Codices with the S-sign—Xonecuilli—Ursa Minor, can be understood. ”

“ Such a star is as much above the pole at its highest passage, as it is below at its lowest, so that the mean must necessarily give the height of the pole itself free from doubt, except as regards incidental errors. The Pole-star is usually selected for the purpose of such observations because it describes the smallest circle, and is thus on the whole least affected by atmospheric refraction. ”

“ Polaris or pole-star is known generally as North Star, and this star is most important to the outdoor girl. At all times the North Star marks the north, its position never changes, and seeing that star and knowing it, you will always know the points of the compass. ”

“ This movement of the earth’s axis by displacing the equinoctial points, alters the “declination” and “right ascension” of the stars (compare page 473) . So Polaris is gradually approaching the actual polar point. In about 200 years he will have got as close as he can, and will then begin to recede from it, and in about 12,500 years after he will reach his most distant point.
Fig. 608.—The Great Bear.
Polaris, the Pole Star, was called “Cynosure” by the ancients, and thus we can understand the quotation, “Cynosure of neighbouring eyes,” when a person or object is very attractive. ”