more precisely, 317.67669 +52.88378), near the 6th-magnitude star BD +52 2880 (also known as HR 8106, HD 201834, or SAO 33185), which in turn is at R.A. Decl. . The top two stars in the Northern Cross, Sadr and Deneb, point to the north celestial pole of Mars. The pole is about halfway between Deneb and Alpha Cephei, less than 10° from the former, a bit more than the apparent distance between Sadr and Deneb. Because of its proximity to the pole, Deneb never sets in nearly all of Mars's northern hemisphere. Except in areas close to the equator, Deneb permanently circles the North pole. The orientation of Deneb and Sadr would make a useful clock hand for telling sidereal time. Mars's north celestial pole is also only a few degrees away from the galactic plane. Thus the Milky Way, especially rich in the area of Cygnus, is always visible from the northern hemisphere. The South celestial pole is correspondingly found at and , which is a couple of degrees from the 2.5-magnitude star Kappa Velorum (which is at ), which could therefore be considered the southern polar star. The star Canopus, second-brightest in the sky, is a circumpolar star for most southern latitudes. The zodiac constellations of Mars's ecliptic are almost the same as those of Earth — after all, the two ecliptic planes only have a mutual inclination of 1.85° — but on Mars, the Sun spends 6 days in the constellation Cetus, leaving and re-entering Pisces as it does so, making a total of 14 zodiacal constellations. The equinoxes and solstices are different as well: for the northern hemisphere, vernal equinox is in Ophiuchus (compared to Pisces on Earth), summer solstice is at the border of Aquarius and Pisces, autumnal equinox is in Taurus, and winter solstice is in Virgo. As on Earth, precession will cause the solstices and equinoxes to cycle through the zodiac constellations over thousands and tens of thousands of years. Long-term variations As on Earth, the effect of precession causes the north and south celestial poles to move in a very large circle, but on Mars the cycle is 95,500 Martian years (179,600 Earth years) rather than 26,000 years as on Earth. As on Earth, there is a second form of precession: the point of perihelion in Mars's orbit changes slowly, causing the anomalistic year to differ from the sidereal year. However, on