How many acres is north star

The farther a star is from the pole, the larger the circle it travels around the sky. Some stars travel a great distance over the course of the night. Polaris is different. Because it's so close to the celestial pole, it traces out a very small circle over 24 hours. So Polaris always stays in roughly the same place in the sky, and therefore it's a reliable way to find the direction of north.

It would appear directly overhead if you stood at the north pole, but farther south, it indicated the direction of north. Locating Polaris is easy on any clear night. Just find the Big Dipper. The two stars on the end of the Dipper's "cup" point the way to Polaris, which is the tip of the handle of the Little Dipper, or the tail of the little bear in the constellation Ursa Minor. The Big Dipper, like a great big hour hand, goes a full counter-clockwise circle around Polaris in one day.

Even though the Big Dipper travels around Polaris all night long, the Big Dipper pointer stars always point to Polaris on any day of the year, and at any time of the night. The following steps will help you locate the North Star in the northern hemisphere sky. It is not difficult to find Polaris, as long as it sits high enough in the sky from your latitude, and obstructions such as large trees are not blocking your view.

The amount of local light pollution in your location can make seeing stars difficult. You can find out where your backyard falls in the Bortle Scale using this guide. Amateur astronomers and astrophotographers must understand how to find the North Star to align their telescopes.

Polar alignment is a critical step of the process when using an equatorial telescope mount. Once the mounts polar axis is aligned with the north celestial pole, the telescope can accurately track the apparent motion of the stars across the night sky in the sidereal rate.

However the North Star has not always been, nor will it always be the Pole Star. In the year B. In about 13, years from our current date, the precession of the rotation axis will mean that the bright star Vega will become the North Star.

The single point of light that we see as Polaris is actually a triple star system; three stars orbiting a common center of mass. The primary star, Polaris A, is a supergiant more than two thousand times brighter than our sun. The next closest companion is Polaris Ab, a main-sequence star. Polaris Ab orbits 2 billion miles from Polaris A. Much farther away from the first two, is the third companion Polaris B. Polaris B is located approximately billion miles from Polaris A.

Polaris, the North Star, lies at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, whose stars are rather faint. Its four faintest stars can be blotted out with very little moonlight or street lighting. The best way to find your way to Polaris is to use the so-called "Pointer" stars in the bowl of the Big Dipper , Dubhe and Merak.

Just draw a line between these two stars and extend it out about 5 times, and you eventually will arrive in the vicinity of Polaris. Interestingly, the Big and Little Dippers are arranged so that when one is upright, the other is upside down.

In addition, their handles appear to extend in opposite directions. Of course, the Big Dipper is by far the brighter of the two, appearing as a long-handled pan, while the Little Dipper resembles a dim ladle. Polaris is located at a distance of light-years from Earth and has luminosity nearly 4, times that of our sun. Polaris shines at 2nd magnitude. On this astronomers' scale, smaller numbers represent brighter objects, with the brightest stars and planets in the night sky at around magnitude zero or even negative magnitudes.

The North Star it is a "pulsing" star, a Cepheid variable , which appears to vary in brightness ever so slightly — only one tenth of a magnitude — over a time frame of just under four days. If you have a small telescope and train it on Polaris, you just might notice a tiny companion star called Polaris B shining at 9th magnitude with a pale bluish tint.

This companion was first sighted by Sir William Herschel in just a year later, Herschel would discover the planet Uranus. Astronomers believe that the two stars — A and B — are separated by about 2, astronomical units — one astronomical unit a.

The orbital period of the two stars may number in the many thousands of years. In , by studying the spectrum of Polaris, a third companion star Polaris C was discovered. This one, a white dwarf, lies only Its extreme closeness to the far more brilliant Polaris A explains why it went unseen for so long.

Exactly where you see Polaris in your northern sky depends on your latitude.