Talk:Pole star: Difference between revisions

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A fact from Pole star appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 April 2004. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that pole stars change over time because stars exhibit a slow but distinct drift with respect to the Earth's axis? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/April.

I'm not seeing any angles quantifying the precession. Is it 5 degrees, or 25 degrees, or what? Where was it pointed half a cycle ago (13,000 years ago) and how far away from Polaris (by perspective angle) is that? Br77rino (talk) 08:46, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The center of the axial precession cycle is the ecliptic pole, so the diameter is about 23.5°×2 or 47°. --Lasunncty (talk) 10:06, 1 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article is rather thin. North Star and South Star are a pair of short pages that somewhat duplicate this one and each other. Further, all three admit their incompleteness by directing the reader to others of the set for more information. One, more substantial, article could be formed by merging the other two into the appropriate sections of this one.

If there are no strong objections, I plan to accomplish the merge in March 2009.
B00P (talk) 23:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Good idea. 86.152.242.69 (talk) 23:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC).[reply]

• • Since there have been no objections in a long time, I have done the merge. 81.157.196.83 (talk) 21:26, 3 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Pluto is currently included in the list of planets, but it is no longer recognized as such. So, the table of planets should read from Mercury through to Neptune. Pluto should be referred to as a dwarf planet, its official designation. It may keep its pole star (heh). 68Kustom (talk) 04:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

With this edit on June 24, 2009, [[::User:Robogun|Robogun]] (talk · contribs) created the section Pole star#Precession by copying the section Precession (astronomy)#Changing pole stars without attribution. Please see the page history for appropriate attribution. Novangelis (talk) 19:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that Polaris is "currently" the pole star, and that there may in theory be others. The problem is that there aren't. The only star that has historically ever been described as "pole star" is Polaris. Indeed "[stella] Polaris" means nothing else but "pole star". Hence it is misleading and a potential WP:CFORK to keep these pages separate.

It is true that Polaris is only "currently" the pole star, and that a thousand years ago, and in a thousand years' time, there will be no pole star. Well, 2000 years is a pretty good expectation for the usefulness of any Wikipedia article.

The statement that "Currently, there is no South Star as useful as Polaris" sounds as if this may change any day, and yes, Wikipedia will keep you updated as soon as new developments arise. This may be the case in as little as another five millennia. Enough to tag this article with {{current}}? --dab (𒁳) 18:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thuban was the recognized pole star for the early Ancient Egyptians. They laid out the Great Pyramid with it so the sides would face north south east and west. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I made two small changes to the article. 1: The presence of a 19th magnitude star near the north celestial pole is irrelevant to the topic. 2: The north star is not visible south of the equator. It's true that refraction lifts the stars but extinction makes fainter stars like Polaris invisible to the naked eye at lower latitudes. The north star (today) is visible from about 3 degrees north and above.2600:1000:B003:733C:CCD0:F7AA:265E:924D (talk) 15:33, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your second edit, however I Want to remind you that, regarding your first edit, the topic is not on the closest visible object to the north, but rather simply the north star. While USNOA etc etc may only be north star for a few years, it is currently the closest star to the north pole and as such is worthy of being mentioned in the article. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 22:40, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of the "pole star" has always been a star visible to the naked eye, and the entire article is otherwise about such stars. The opening sentence of the article describes a pole star as a "visible star". While that's a bit ambiguous (all stars are visible in some sense, even black holes), the clear implication is a "naked eye" star. The article is ABOUT stars near the celestial poles visible to the naked eye. I cannot recall any time in the history of astronomy or celestial navigation when anyone has identified a star too faint to be seen with unaided vision as the "true" pole star. In addition, why stop at magnitude 19? I guarantee that there is a 22nd magnitude star that is even closer to the north celestial pole today. Finally when dealing with such faint stars, the distance from the celestial pole becomes so small that there would a new "true" pole star on a daily basis. Merely looking up a star in a catalog and finding the one with the declination closest to 90.0 north is bad astronomy. Precession, nutation, aberration, proper motion and more will shift that star's position around more than than the small residual distance from the coordinate pole found in the catalog. FINALLY, the simplest problem with the inclusion of this very faint star is that it is unsourced, original research. There are no reliable sources (excluding sources which are clearly referencing the Wikipedia page) that refer to this star as a pole star. Therefore I am removing it again. 2600:1000:B025:4868:11FE:67A4:6B3F:4346 (talk) 17:16, 12 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]