As the southern hemisphere's pole star it bore the name Polaris Australis, first applied in the 1700s.[12] In 2016, the IAU organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)[13] to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name Polaris Australis for this star on 5 September 2017 and it is now so included in the List of IAU-approved Star Names.[10] It is the southernmost named star.
Sigma Octantis is the current southern pole star, whose counterpart is Polaris, the current North Star. To an observer in the southern hemisphere, Sigma Octantis appears almost motionless and all the other stars in the Southern sky appear to rotate around it. It is part of a small "half hexagon" shape. It is slightly more than a degree away from the true south pole, and the south celestial pole is moving away from it due to precession of the equinoxes.
The south celestial pole. The trapezoidal asterism at the centre includes Sigma Octantis.
At magnitude +5.42, Sigma Octantis is barely visible to the naked eye, making it unusable for navigation, especially by comparison with the much brighter and more easily visible Polaris.[16]
Because of this, the constellationCrux is often preferred for determining the position of the South Celestial Pole.[17]
Once Sigma Octantis' approximate position has been determined, either by the major stars in Octans or using the Southern Cross (Crux) method, it can be positively verified using an asterism: Sigma, Chi, Tau, and Upsilon Octantis are all stars of around magnitude 5.6, and form the distinctive shape of a trapezoid.
Sigma Octantis was used as a reference to measure the magnitudes of stars in the southern hemisphere for the 1908 Revised Harvard Photometry catalogue. The Pole Star and Lambda Ursae Minoris were used for the northern hemisphere. It was then noted that "Neither of these stars appears to vary perceptibly" but that, due to the procedures used "if they did, the variation would have no effect on the final measures."[18]
^ abcJohnson, H. L.; et al. (1966). "UBVRIJKL photometry of the bright stars". Communications of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. 4 (99): 99. Bibcode:1966CoLPL...4...99J.
^ abHouk, Nancy (1975). "Michigan catalogue of two-dimensional spectral types for the HD stars". University of Michigan Catalogue of Two-Dimensional Spectral Types for the Hd Stars. Volume I. Declinations -90_ to -53_Ƒ0. 1. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Dept. of Astronomy, University of Michigan. Bibcode:1975mcts.book.....H.
^Wilson, Ralph Elmer (1953). "General catalogue of stellar radial velocities". Washington. Carnegie Institution of Washington: 0. Bibcode:1953GCRV..C......0W.
^Antonello, E.; Mantegazza, L. (November 1997). "Luminosity and related parameters of δ Scuti stars from HIPPARCOS parallaxes. General properties of luminosity". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 327: 240–244. Bibcode:1997A&A...327..240A.
^ abcdeDavid, Trevor J.; Hillenbrand, Lynne A. (2015). "The Ages of Early-Type Stars: Strömgren Photometric Methods Calibrated, Validated, Tested, and Applied to Hosts and Prospective Hosts of Directly Imaged Exoplanets". The Astrophysical Journal. 804 (2): 146. arXiv:1501.03154. Bibcode:2015ApJ...804..146D. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/804/2/146. S2CID33401607.
^Tsvetkov, Ts. G. (1982). "On the Radial Pulsations of the delta Scuti Stars sigma Octantis and B Octantis". Information Bulletin on Variable Stars. 2084: 1. Bibcode:1982IBVS.2084....1T.
^Pickering, Edward Charles (1908). "Revised Harvard Photometry". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 50: 2. Bibcode:1908AnHar..50....1P.
