page_title: Circumpolar star
hierarchical_section_title: Circumpolar star
caption_attribution_description: English: A very long exposure (7+ hours) of the night sky looking at Polaris, showing star trails. Taken in Northern Arizona.
context_page_description: A circumpolar star is a star, as viewed from a given latitude on Earth, that never sets below the horizon due to its apparent proximity to one of the celestial poles. Circumpolar stars are therefore visible from said location toward the nearest pole for the entire night on every night of the year.
  All circumpolar stars lie within a relative circumpolar circle, whose radius equals the observer's latitude. This was in fact the original meaning of "Arctic Circle", before the current geographical meaning, meaning "Circle of the Bears", from Greek αρκτικός, "near the Bear", from the word άρκτος bear.
context_section_description: A circumpolar star is a star, as viewed from a given latitude on Earth, that never sets below the horizon due to its apparent proximity to one of the celestial poles. Circumpolar stars are therefore visible from said location toward the nearest pole for the entire night on every night of the year (and would be continuously visible throughout the day too, were they not overwhelmed by the Sun's glare).
  All circumpolar stars lie within a relative circumpolar circle, whose radius equals the observer's latitude. This was in fact the original meaning of "Arctic Circle", before the current geographical meaning, meaning "Circle of the Bears" (Ursa Major, the Great Bear; and Ursa Minor, the Little Bear), from Greek αρκτικός (arktikos), "near the Bear", from the word άρκτος (arktos) bear.
caption: Circumpolar star trails in a long-exposure photo of several hours. Note that the stars near the celestial pole leave shorter trails with the long exposure.
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