Polaris: Perfect Imperfection

Photographer Gregory U. Jáuregui Polaris has been used effectively as our current North Star for navigation on Earth for thousands of years. Did you know that our North Star is the star that sits directly above Earth's North Pole? If you stare long enough, the whole sky appears to turn counter-clockwise around this single point. But if you ZOOM into the bright star above the UC San Diego library, you'll notice that our current North Star, aka Polaris, isn't exactly at the center of the star trails/circles. Although it is slightly off-center, it is the brightest and the closest star to the Celestial North Pole. Its imperfection is insignificant to its purpose and I think that's beautiful.I took 3 trips to the UC San Diego campus during the month of March 2021. On each trip, I practiced for hours how to capture star trails but with a challenging foreground: Geisel Library. I took advantage that the campus was dark, still, and peaceful late at night (only the Talking Tree could be heard s