STELLAR NAVIGATION

If you are outdoors during the night you can use "Polaris," the North Star, to establish direction, check your compass, and measure deviation in the magnetic pole. Polaris is easy to spot. If you know generally which way North is then look North and you will find a single isolated star. This is Polaris. Polaris never strays more than 2 degrees from the true north pole, and hence while all the other stars "appear" to arc westward across the night sky ("appear" because it is the earth itself that is actually rotating) Polaris stays fixed over True North. You can also find Polaris from the Big Dipper. Locate the cup or pan section of the Big Dipper, transect a line from the far (away from the handle) bottom star in the cup to the far top cup star. The line points to Polaris.