The Arctic Home in the Vedas c6.22

c6.22

But when the zenith Z is different from P, as in the figure, the celestial horizon of the observer will be H'H, and the stars will now appear to move in circles inclined to his horizon, as shown in the figure by the black lines *AA'*, *BH'* and *CC'*. Some of the stars, *viz.*, those that are situated in the part of the celestial dome represented by *H'PB*, will be visible throughout the night, as their circles of revolution will be above the horizon *H'C'D'H*. But all the stars, whose Polar distance is greater than *PB* or *PH'*, will, in their daily revolution, be partly above and partly below the horizon. For instance, the stars at *C* and *D* will describe circles, some portions of which will be below the horizon *H'H*. In other words, the appearance of the visible celestial hemisphere to a person, whose zenith is at *Z*, will be different from the appearance presented by the heavens to an observer at the North Pole. The stars will not now revolve in horizontal planes, but obliquely. A great number of them would be circumpolar and visible during the whole night, but the remaining will rise and set as with us in the tropics, moving in oblique circles. When *Z* is very near *P*, only a few stars will rise and set in this way, and the difference will not be a marked one; but as *Z* is removed further south, the change will become more and more apparent.