The South Celestial Pole is the celestial point directly overhead at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the one point that is always visible in the sky in the Southern Hemisphere, at any latitude. (And conversely, a point that is never visible at any latitude in the Northern Hemisphere.

The South Celestial Pole, and the area around it, is also almost totally unremarkable to visual inspection, and even to astronomical instruments. In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Celestial Pole is marked by Polaris, the (almost) fixed star that the rest of the sky (currently) rotates around. Polaris is in the constellation Ursa Minor, also known as "The Little Dipper", and there are several large constellations with bright stars that are circumpolar for North America and Europe. In the South...almost nothing.

The lack of legends and myth about the southern hemisphere could be seen as a matter of Eurocentricism, the purposeful ignorance of the astronomy of the south by the European tradition. But most of "European" astronomy was invented by Greeks and Arabs living in a time and a place where most of the southern hemisphere was visible. However, the southmost region was hidden from astronomers in Europe, the Middle East, India and China. But beyond that, the Southern Celestial Pole just doesn't have many visible stars. It is occupied by the constellation Octans, a collection of dim stars celebrating a scientific instrument, invented by the astronomer Nicolas Louis de LaCaille in the 18th century. It lacks a central star for either poetic fancy or as a navigational aid. The Southern Celestial Pole is mostly a mathematical idea, rather than something to be experienced.

It is a coincidence that the south pole of our planet happens to point towards an empty patch of sky (although two significant objects, The Magellanic Clouds, are not too far distant). Not too strange of a coincidence: there are many chance blank areas in the sky, and currently, one end of our planet points to one of them.

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