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72-430: Dhruva Thare ( transl.   Pole star ) is a 1985 Indian Kannada -language film directed by M. S. Rajashekar in his directorial debut. The film stars Rajkumar , Geetha and Deepa . The movie is famous for its songs composed by Upendra Kumar . It is based on the novel Aparanji written by Vijay Sasanur. Sagar is a well-known city lawyer who is on the side of truth all the time. He falls in love with Sudha,

144-425: A celestial coordinate system lies in one of the modern constellations. Some astronomical naming systems include the constellation where a given celestial object is found to convey its approximate location in the sky. The Flamsteed designation of a star, for example, consists of a number and the genitive form of the constellation's name. Other star patterns or groups called asterisms are not constellations under

216-399: A bright magnitude 2 star aligned approximately with its northern axis that serves as a pre-eminent star in celestial navigation , and a much dimmer magnitude 5.5 star on its southern axis, Polaris Australis (Sigma Octantis). From around 1700 BC until just after 300 AD, Kochab (Beta Ursae Minoris) and Pherkad (Gamma Ursae Minoris) were twin northern pole stars, though neither

288-480: A college student and marries her. He develops his inner talent of painting and goes commercial with it. A grave disaster strikes his family, which later becomes a legal case. Whether he remains a painter and lets go of the case or fights for the truth forms the rest of the story. This article about a Kannada film of the 1980s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Pole star Currently, Earth's pole stars are Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris),

360-475: A declination of –82°, meaning it will rise and set daily for latitudes between 8°S and 8°N, and will not rise to viewers north of this latter 8th parallel north . Precession and proper motion mean that Sirius will be a future southern pole star: at 88.4° S declination in the year 66,270 AD; and 87.7° S declination in the year 93,830 AD. Pole stars of other planets are defined analogously: they are stars (brighter than 6th magnitude, i.e. , visible to

432-547: A distance of 5° from celestial north. Precession will eventually point the north celestial pole nearer the stars in the constellation Hercules , pointing towards Tau Herculis around 18,400 AD. The celestial pole will then return to the stars in constellation Draco (Thuban, mentioned above) before returning to the current constellation, Ursa Minor. When Polaris becomes the North Star again around 27,800 AD, due to its proper motion it then will be farther away from

504-436: A distant 7° from the pole, never close enough to be taken as marking the pole, while third-magnitude Delta Cygni will be a more helpful pole star, at a distance of 3° from celestial north, around 11,250 AD. Precession will then point the north celestial pole nearer the constellation Lyra , where the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere , Vega , will be a pole star around 14,500 AD, though at

576-452: A list of 88 constellations with three-letter abbreviations for them. However, these constellations did not have clear borders between them. In 1928, the IAU formally accepted the 88 modern constellations, with contiguous boundaries along vertical and horizontal lines of right ascension and declination developed by Eugene Delporte that, together, cover the entire celestial sphere; this list

648-421: A long tradition of observing celestial phenomena. Nonspecific Chinese star names , later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions , have been found on oracle bones from Anyang , dating back to the middle Shang dynasty . These constellations are some of the most important observations of Chinese sky, attested from the 5th century BC. Parallels to the earliest Babylonian (Sumerian) star catalogues suggest that

720-404: Is barely visible on a clear night , making it less useful for casual navigational or astronomy alignment purposes. It is a yellow giant 294 light years from Earth. Its angular separation from the pole is about 1° (as of 2000 ). The Southern Cross constellation functions as an approximate southern pole constellation, by pointing to where a southern pole star would be. At the equator , it

792-553: Is called stella maris , the sterre of the see, for he ledeth in the see men that saylle and have shyppemannes crafte. Polaris was associated with Marian veneration from an early time, Our Lady, Star of the Sea being a title of the Blessed Virgin. This tradition goes back to a misreading of Saint Jerome 's translation of Eusebius ' Onomasticon , De nominibus hebraicis (written ca. 390). Jerome gave stilla maris "drop of

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864-536: Is invisible in light-polluted urban skies. During the 1st millennium BC, Beta Ursae Minoris (Kochab) was the bright star closest to the celestial pole, but it was never close enough to be taken as marking the pole, and the Greek navigator Pytheas in ca. 320 BC described the celestial pole as devoid of stars. In the Roman era , the celestial pole was about equally distant between Polaris and Kochab. The precession of

936-515: Is possible to see both Polaris and the Southern Cross. The celestial south pole is moving toward the Southern Cross, which has pointed to the south pole for the last 2000 years or so. As a consequence, the constellation is no longer visible from subtropical northern latitudes, as it was in the time of the ancient Greeks . Around 200 BC, the star Beta Hydri was the nearest bright star to the celestial south pole. Around 2800 BC, Achernar

1008-645: Is the Suzhou Astronomical Chart , which was prepared with carvings of stars on the planisphere of the Chinese sky on a stone plate; it is done accurately based on observations, and it shows the supernova of the year of 1054 in Taurus. Influenced by European astronomy during the late Ming dynasty , charts depicted more stars but retained the traditional constellations. Newly observed stars were incorporated as supplementary to old constellations in

1080-564: The KJV , but ‘Ayish "the bier" actually corresponding to Ursa Major. The term Mazzaroth מַזָּרוֹת , translated as a garland of crowns , is a hapax legomenon in Job 38:32, and it might refer to the zodiacal constellations. There is only limited information on ancient Greek constellations, with some fragmentary evidence being found in the Works and Days of the Greek poet Hesiod , who mentioned

1152-675: The Zodiac of Dendera ; it remains unclear when this occurred, but most were placed during the Roman period between 2nd to 4th centuries AD. The oldest known depiction of the zodiac showing all the now familiar constellations, along with some original Egyptian constellations, decans , and planets . Ptolemy's Almagest remained the standard definition of constellations in the medieval period both in Europe and in Islamic astronomy . Ancient China had

1224-592: The horizon when viewed from a particular latitude on Earth is termed circumpolar . From the North Pole or South Pole , all constellations south or north of the celestial equator are circumpolar . Depending on the definition, equatorial constellations may include those that lie between declinations 45° north and 45° south, or those that pass through the declination range of the ecliptic (or zodiac ) ranging between 23.5° north and 23.5° south . Stars in constellations can appear near each other in

1296-583: The zodiac (straddling the ecliptic , which the Sun , Moon , and planets all traverse). The origins of the zodiac remain historically uncertain; its astrological divisions became prominent c. 400 BC in Babylonian or Chaldean astronomy. Constellations appear in Western culture via Greece and are mentioned in the works of Hesiod , Eudoxus and Aratus . The traditional 48 constellations, consisting of

1368-510: The "Star of the Sea" metaphor, saying that Mary is the "Star of the Sea" to be followed on the way to Christ, "lest we capsize amid the storm-tossed waves of the sea." In Mandaean cosmology , the Pole Star is considered to be auspicious and is associated with the World of Light ("heaven"). Mandaeans face north when praying, and temples are also oriented towards the north. On the contrary,

1440-458: The "heavenly bodies". Greek astronomy essentially adopted the older Babylonian system in the Hellenistic era , first introduced to Greece by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the 4th century BC. The original work of Eudoxus is lost, but it survives as a versification by Aratus , dating to the 3rd century BC. The most complete existing works dealing with the mythical origins of the constellations are by

1512-607: The 14th century. The Ancient Greek word for constellation is ἄστρον ( astron ). These terms historically referred to any recognisable pattern of stars whose appearance was associated with mythological characters or creatures, earthbound animals, or objects. Over time, among European astronomers, the constellations became clearly defined and widely recognised. In the 20th century, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) recognized 88 constellations . A constellation or star that never sets below

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1584-529: The 17,000-year-old cave paintings in Lascaux , southern France, depict star constellations such as Taurus, Orion's Belt, and the Pleiades. However, this view is not generally accepted among scientists. Inscribed stones and clay writing tablets from Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) dating to 3000 BC provide the earliest generally accepted evidence for humankind's identification of constellations. It seems that

1656-525: The 5th century, when it was still removed from the celestial pole by about 8°. It was known as scip-steorra ("ship-star") in 10th-century Anglo-Saxon England , reflecting its use in navigation. In the Vishnu Purana , it is personified under the name Dhruva ("immovable, fixed"). The name stella polaris was coined in the Renaissance, even though at that time it was well recognized that it

1728-556: The 88 IAU-recognized constellations in this region first appeared on celestial globes developed in the late 16th century by Petrus Plancius , based mainly on observations of the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman . These became widely known through Johann Bayer 's star atlas Uranometria of 1603. Fourteen more were created in 1763 by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille , who also split

1800-742: The Hellenistic writer termed pseudo-Eratosthenes and an early Roman writer styled pseudo- Hyginus . The basis of Western astronomy as taught during Late Antiquity and until the Early Modern period is the Almagest by Ptolemy , written in the 2nd century. In the Ptolemaic Kingdom , native Egyptian tradition of anthropomorphic figures represented the planets, stars, and various constellations. Some of these were combined with Greek and Babylonian astronomical systems culminating in

1872-504: The IAU as well as those by cultures throughout history are imagined figures and shapes derived from the patterns of stars in the observable sky. Many officially recognized constellations are based on the imaginations of ancient, Near Eastern and Mediterranean mythologies. Some of these stories seem to relate to the appearance of the constellations, e.g. the assassination of Orion by Scorpius, their constellations appearing at opposite times of year. Constellation positions change throughout

1944-572: The Navigator in c. 500 BC. The history of southern constellations is not straightforward. Different groupings and different names were proposed by various observers, some reflecting national traditions or designed to promote various sponsors. Southern constellations were important from the 14th to 16th centuries, when sailors used the stars for celestial navigation . Italian explorers who recorded new southern constellations include Andrea Corsali , Antonio Pigafetta , and Amerigo Vespucci . Many of

2016-647: The ancient Chinese system did not arise independently. Three schools of classical Chinese astronomy in the Han period are attributed to astronomers of the earlier Warring States period . The constellations of the three schools were conflated into a single system by Chen Zhuo , an astronomer of the 3rd century ( Three Kingdoms period ). Chen Zhuo's work has been lost, but information on his system of constellations survives in Tang period records, notably by Qutan Xida . The oldest extant Chinese star chart dates to that period and

2088-409: The ancient constellation Argo Navis into three; these new figures appeared in his star catalogue, published in 1756. Several modern proposals have not survived. The French astronomers Pierre Lemonnier and Joseph Lalande , for example, proposed constellations that were once popular but have since been dropped. The northern constellation Quadrans Muralis survived into the 19th century (when its name

2160-733: The bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC. Mesopotamian constellations appeared later in many of the classical Greek constellations. The oldest Babylonian catalogues of stars and constellations date back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age , most notably the Three Stars Each texts and the MUL.APIN , an expanded and revised version based on more accurate observation from around 1000 BC. However,

2232-596: The celestial equator), and southern constellations Puppis , Vela , Carina , Crux , Centaurus , Triangulum Australe , and Ara . Polaris , being the North Star, is the approximate center of the northern celestial hemisphere. It is part of Ursa Minor , constituting the end of the Little Dipper's handle. From latitudes of around 35° north, in January, Ursa Major (containing the Big Dipper ) appears to

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2304-410: The celestial north pole, on 24 March 2100. Precession will next point the north celestial pole at stars in the northern constellation Cepheus . The pole will drift to space equidistant between Polaris and Gamma Cephei ("Errai") by 3000 AD, with Errai reaching its closest alignment with the northern celestial pole around 4200 AD. Iota Cephei and Beta Cephei will stand on either side of

2376-430: The current star, with stars that will be "near-north" indicators when no North Star exists during the cycle, including each star's average brightness and closest alignment to the north celestial pole during the cycle: Currently, there is no South Pole Star like Polaris , the so-called North Star . Sigma Octantis is the closest near naked-eye star to the south celestial pole, but at apparent magnitude 5.47 it

2448-717: The daytime and lower at night, while in winter the reverse is true, for both hemispheres. Due to the Solar System 's 60° tilt, the galactic plane of the Milky Way is inclined 60° from the ecliptic, between Taurus and Gemini (north) and Scorpius and Sagittarius (south and near which the Galactic Center can be found). The galaxy appears to pass through Aquila (near the celestial equator) and northern constellations Cygnus , Cassiopeia , Perseus , Auriga , and Orion (near Betelgeuse ), as well as Monoceros (near

2520-524: The development of today's accepted modern constellations. The southern sky, below about −65° declination , was only partially catalogued by ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, and Persian astronomers of the north. The knowledge that northern and southern star patterns differed goes back to Classical writers, who describe, for example, the African circumnavigation expedition commissioned by Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II in c. 600 BC and those of Hanno

2592-432: The early 20th century before today's constellations were internationally recognized. The recognition of constellations has changed significantly over time. Many changed in size or shape. Some became popular, only to drop into obscurity. Some were limited to a single culture or nation. Naming constellations also helped astronomers and navigators identify stars more easily. Twelve (or thirteen) ancient constellations belong to

2664-399: The early constellations were never universally adopted. Stars were often grouped into constellations differently by different observers, and the arbitrary constellation boundaries often led to confusion as to which constellation a celestial object belonged. Before astronomers delineated precise boundaries (starting in the 19th century), constellations generally appeared as ill-defined regions of

2736-425: The ecliptic), approximating a great circle . Zodiacal constellations of the northern sky are Pisces , Aries , Taurus , Gemini , Cancer , and Leo . In the southern sky are Virgo , Libra , Scorpius , Sagittarius , Capricornus , and Aquarius . The zodiac appears directly overhead from latitudes of 23.5° north to 23.5° south, depending on the time of year. In summer, the ecliptic appears higher up in

2808-466: The equinoxes takes about 25,770 years to complete a cycle. Polaris' mean position (taking account of precession and proper motion ) will reach a maximum declination of +89°32'23", which translates to 1657" (or 0.4603°) from the celestial north pole, in February 2102. Its maximum apparent declination (taking account of nutation and aberration ) will be +89°32'50.62", which is 1629" (or 0.4526°) from

2880-507: The form of star charts , whose oldest representation appears on the statue known as the Farnese Atlas , based perhaps on the star catalogue of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus . Southern constellations are more modern inventions, sometimes as substitutes for ancient constellations (e.g. Argo Navis ). Some southern constellations had long names that were shortened to more usable forms; e.g. Musca Australis became simply Musca. Some of

2952-621: The formal definition, but are also used by observers to navigate the night sky. Asterisms may be several stars within a constellation, or they may share stars with more than one constellation. Examples of asterisms include the teapot within the constellation Sagittarius , or the big dipper in the constellation of Ursa Major . The word constellation comes from the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō , which can be translated as "set of stars"; it came into use in Middle English during

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3024-480: The mid-18th century when European explorers began traveling to the Southern Hemisphere . Due to Roman and European transmission, each constellation has a Latin name. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally accepted the modern list of 88 constellations , and in 1928 adopted official constellation boundaries that together cover the entire celestial sphere. Any given point in

3096-459: The naked eye limit needed to serve as a useful indicator of north to an Earth-based observer, resulting in periods of time during the cycle when there is no clearly defined North Star. There will also be periods during the cycle when bright stars give only an approximate guide to "north", as they may be greater than 5° of angular diameter removed from direct alignment with the north celestial pole. The 26,000 year cycle of North Stars, starting with

3168-447: The naked eye under ideal conditions) that most closely coincide with the projection of the planet's axis of rotation onto the celestial sphere. Different planets have different pole stars because their axes are oriented differently. (See Poles of astronomical bodies .) In the medieval period, Polaris was also known as stella maris ("star of the sea", from its use for navigation at sea), as in e.g. Bartholomaeus Anglicus (d. 1272), in

3240-449: The northeast, while Cassiopeia is the northwest. To the west are Pisces (above the horizon) and Aries. To the southwest Cetus is near the horizon. Up high and to the south are Orion and Taurus. To the southeast above the horizon is Canis Major . Appearing above and to the east of Orion is Gemini : also in the east (and progressively closer to the horizon) are Cancer and Leo. In addition to Taurus, Perseus and Auriga appear overhead. From

3312-430: The northern celestial pole some time around 5200 AD, before moving to closer alignment with the brighter star Alpha Cephei ("Alderamin") around 7500 AD. Precession will then point the north celestial pole at stars in the northern constellation Cygnus . Like Beta Ursae Minoris during the 1st millennium BC, the bright star closest to the celestial pole in the 10th millennium AD, first-magnitude Deneb , will be

3384-602: The numerous Sumerian names in these catalogues suggest that they built on older, but otherwise unattested, Sumerian traditions of the Early Bronze Age . The classical Zodiac is a revision of Neo-Babylonian constellations from the 6th century BC. The Greeks adopted the Babylonian constellations in the 4th century BC. Twenty Ptolemaic constellations are from the Ancient Near East. Another ten have

3456-538: The parts of the southern sky unknown to Ptolemy) by Petrus Plancius (1592, 1597/98 and 1613), Johannes Hevelius (1690) and Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1763), who introduced fourteen new constellations. Lacaille studied the stars of the southern hemisphere from 1751 until 1752 from the Cape of Good Hope , when he was said to have observed more than 10,000 stars using a refracting telescope with an aperture of 0.5 inches (13 mm). In 1922, Henry Norris Russell produced

3528-455: The pole star include Chamaeleon , Apus and Triangulum Australe (near Centaurus), Pavo , Hydrus , and Mensa . Sigma Octantis is the closest star approximating a southern pole star, but is faint in the night sky. Thus, the pole can be triangulated using the constellation Crux as well as the stars Alpha and Beta Centauri (about 30° counterclockwise from Crux) of the constellation Centaurus (arching over Crux). It has been suggested that

3600-433: The pole than it is now, while in 23,600 BC it was closer to the pole. Over the course of Earth's 26,000-year axial precession cycle, a series of bright naked eye stars (an apparent magnitude up to +6; a full moon is −12.9) in the northern hemisphere will hold the transitory title of North Star. While other stars might line up with the north celestial pole during the 26,000 year cycle, they do not necessarily meet

3672-695: The same latitude, in July, Cassiopeia (low in the sky) and Cepheus appear to the northeast. Ursa Major is now in the northwest. Boötes is high up in the west. Virgo is to the west, with Libra southwest and Scorpius south. Sagittarius and Capricorn are southeast. Cygnus (containing the Northern Cross ) is to the east. Hercules is high in the sky along with Corona Borealis . January constellations include Pictor and Reticulum (near Hydrus and Mensa, respectively). In July, Ara (adjacent to Triangulum Australe) and Scorpius can be seen. Constellations near

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3744-836: The same stars but different names. Biblical scholar E. W. Bullinger interpreted some of the creatures mentioned in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation as the middle signs of the four-quarters of the Zodiac, with the Lion as Leo , the Bull as Taurus , the Man representing Aquarius , and the Eagle standing in for Scorpio . The biblical Book of Job also makes reference to a number of constellations, including עיש ‘Ayish "bier", כסיל chesil "fool" and כימה chimah "heap" (Job 9:9, 38:31–32), rendered as "Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades" by

3816-500: The sea" as a (false) Hebrew etymology of the name Maria . This stilla maris was later misread as stella maris ; the misreading is also found in the manuscript tradition of Isidore 's Etymologiae (7th century); it probably arises in the Carolingian era ; a late 9th-century manuscript of Jerome's text still has stilla , not stella , but Paschasius Radbertus , also writing in the 9th century, makes an explicit reference to

3888-570: The sky, but they usually lie at a variety of distances away from the Earth. Since each star has its own independent motion, all constellations will change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, familiar outlines will become unrecognizable. Astronomers can predict the past or future constellation outlines by measuring common proper motions of individual stars by accurate astrometry and their radial velocities by astronomical spectroscopy . The 88 constellations recognized by

3960-564: The sky. Today they now follow officially accepted designated lines of right ascension and declination based on those defined by Benjamin Gould in epoch 1875.0 in his star catalogue Uranometria Argentina . The 1603 star atlas " Uranometria " of Johann Bayer assigned stars to individual constellations and formalized the division by assigning a series of Greek and Latin letters to the stars within each constellation. These are known today as Bayer designations . Subsequent star atlases led to

4032-588: The south is associated with the World of Darkness . Constellation Four views of the constellation Orion : A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellations were likely defined in prehistory . People used them to relate stories of their beliefs, experiences, creation , and mythology . Different cultures and countries invented their own constellations, some of which lasted into

4104-536: The southern hemisphere of the sky based on the knowledge of Western star charts; with this improvement, the Chinese Sky was integrated with the World astronomy. Historically, the origins of the constellations of the northern and southern skies are distinctly different. Most northern constellations date to antiquity, with names based mostly on Classical Greek legends. Evidence of these constellations has survived in

4176-595: The southern sky, which did not depict the traditional stars recorded by ancient Chinese astronomers. Further improvements were made during the later part of the Ming dynasty by Xu Guangqi and Johann Adam Schall von Bell , the German Jesuit and was recorded in Chongzhen Lishu (Calendrical Treatise of Chongzhen period , 1628). Traditional Chinese star maps incorporated 23 new constellations with 125 stars of

4248-441: The stars' proper motions), the role of North Star has passed from one star to another in the remote past, and will pass in the remote future. In 3000 BC, the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star, aligning within 0.1° distance from the celestial pole, the closest of any of the visible pole stars. However, at magnitude 3.67 (fourth magnitude) it is only one-fifth as bright as Polaris, and today it

4320-473: The translation of John Trevisa (1397): by the place of this sterre place and stedes and boundes of the other sterres and of cercles of heven ben knowen: therefore astronomers beholde mooste this sterre. Then this ster is dyscryved of the moste shorte cercle; for he is ferre from the place that we ben in; he hydeth the hugenesse of his quantite for unmevablenes of his place, and he doth cerfifie men moste certenly, that beholde and take hede therof; and therfore he

4392-458: The year due to night on Earth occurring at gradually different portions of its orbit around the Sun. As Earth rotates toward the east, the celestial sphere appears to rotate west, with stars circling counterclockwise around the northern pole star and clockwise around the southern pole star. Because of Earth's 23.5° axial tilt , the zodiac is distributed equally across hemispheres (along

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4464-508: The years and centuries to come. The constellations have no official symbols, though those of the ecliptic may take the signs of the zodiac. Symbols for the other modern constellations, as well as older ones that still occur in modern nomenclature, have occasionally been published. The Great Rift, a series of dark patches in the Milky Way, is most visible in the southern sky. Some cultures have discerned shapes in these patches. Members of

4536-525: The zodiac and 36 more (now 38, following the division of Argo Navis into three constellations) are listed by Ptolemy , a Greco-Roman astronomer from Alexandria , Egypt, in his Almagest . The formation of constellations was the subject of extensive mythology , most notably in the Metamorphoses of the Latin poet Ovid . Constellations in the far southern sky were added from the 15th century until

4608-412: Was 89.35 degrees North; (at epoch J2000 it was 89.26 degrees N). So it appears due north in the sky to a precision better than one degree, and the angle it makes with respect to the true horizon (after correcting for refraction and other factors) is within a degree of the latitude of the observer. The celestial pole will be nearest Polaris in 2100. Due to the precession of the equinoxes (as well as

4680-433: Was as close to the pole as Polaris is now. In classical antiquity , Beta Ursae Minoris (Kochab) was closer to the celestial north pole than Alpha Ursae Minoris. While there was no naked-eye star close to the pole, the midpoint between Alpha and Beta Ursae Minoris was reasonably close to the pole, and it appears that the entire constellation of Ursa Minor , in antiquity known as Cynosura (Greek Κυνόσουρα "dog's tail"),

4752-467: Was attached to the Quadrantid meteor shower), but is now divided between Boötes and Draco . A list of 88 constellations was produced for the IAU in 1922. It is roughly based on the traditional Greek constellations listed by Ptolemy in his Almagest in the 2nd century and Aratus ' work Phenomena , with early modern modifications and additions (most importantly introducing constellations covering

4824-498: Was finally published in 1930. Where possible, these modern constellations usually share the names of their Graeco-Roman predecessors, such as Orion, Leo, or Scorpius. The aim of this system is area-mapping, i.e. the division of the celestial sphere into contiguous fields. Out of the 88 modern constellations, 36 lie predominantly in the northern sky, and the other 52 predominantly in the southern. The boundaries developed by Delporte used data that originated back to epoch B1875.0 , which

4896-502: Was only 8 degrees from the south pole. In the next 7500 years, the south celestial pole will pass close to the stars Gamma Chamaeleontis (4200 AD), I Carinae , Omega Carinae (5800 AD), Upsilon Carinae , Iota Carinae (Aspidiske, 8100 AD) and Delta Velorum (Alsephina, 9200 AD). From the eightieth to the ninetieth centuries, the south celestial pole will travel through the False Cross . Around 14,000 AD Canopus will have

4968-688: Was preserved as part of the Dunhuang Manuscripts . Native Chinese astronomy flourished during the Song dynasty , and during the Yuan dynasty became increasingly influenced by medieval Islamic astronomy (see Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era ). As maps were prepared during this period on more scientific lines, they were considered as more reliable. A well-known map from the Song period

5040-517: Was several degrees away from the celestial pole; Gemma Frisius in the year 1547 determined this distance as 3°8'. An explicit identification of Mary as stella maris with the North Star ( Polaris ) becomes evident in the title Cynosura seu Mariana Stella Polaris (i.e. "Cynosure, or the Marian Polar Star"), a collection of Marian poetry published by Nicolaus Lucensis (Niccolo Barsotti de Lucca) in 1655. In 2022 Polaris' mean declination

5112-477: Was used as indicating the northern direction for the purposes of navigation by the Phoenicians . The ancient name of Ursa Minor, anglicized as cynosure , has since itself become a term for "guiding principle" after the constellation's use in navigation. Alpha Ursae Minoris (Polaris) was described as ἀειφανής (transliterated as aeiphanes ) meaning "always above the horizon", "ever-shining" by Stobaeus in

5184-406: Was when Benjamin A. Gould first made his proposal to designate boundaries for the celestial sphere, a suggestion on which Delporte based his work. The consequence of this early date is that because of the precession of the equinoxes , the borders on a modern star map, such as epoch J2000 , are already somewhat skewed and no longer perfectly vertical or horizontal. This effect will increase over

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