"What is another name for the second magnitude star ""Alpha"" in the Little Bear Constellation which is the nearest conspicuous star to the north celestial pole?"
Pole star its closest alignment with the northern celestial pole around 4200 AD. Iota Cephei and Beta Cephei will stand on either side of 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. Bright first-magnitude Deneb will be within 7° of the North Pole in 10,000 AD, and third-magnitude Delta Cygni will be a pole star around 11,500 AD. Precession will then point the north celestial pole nearer the constellation Lyra, where
Barnard's Star Barnard's Star Barnard's Star is a very-low-mass red dwarf about 6 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It is the fourth nearest known individual star to the Sun (after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system) and the closest star in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere. Despite its proximity, the star has a dim apparent magnitude of +9.5 and is invisible to the unaided eye; it is much brighter in the infrared than in visible light. The star is named after the American astronomer E. E. Barnard. He was not the first to observe the star (it