Why the north star polaris appears stationary

This is a view from underneath the earth’s south pole looking straight up to the north star near the middle of the circular celestial grid. The earth is rotating at much faster than once per 24 hours in this video to show the effect of how the north star appears to stay more or less in the same place relative to the other stars. Polaris is however moving through space gradually as all stars slowly revolve around the centre of the galaxy once every 226 million years. When we look up at night it will always appear to be in the same place while the other stars pivot around it. Thus it is useful for finding north on a clear night. In 18,000 years it will cease to be the north star as star Vega replaces it. Star Thuban used to be the north star when the Pharaohs were alive. It is about 1 degree off north currently. The precession effect is where the earth’s rotation around its axis is not entirely perfect. It wobbles slightly and its axis projects a circle ahead into space every 25000 years, rather than a perfect single point. By permission and thanks to Celestia software. If this video is blurry you can see the high quality version by adding without the quotes the following text “ &fmt=18 “ to the ending of the URL in the address bar of your browser. Or get the “Better Youtube“ Firefox addon that loads hi quality automatcally.