The Nautical Almanac # 24 --- Miaplacidus, "Still Waters" (The South Pole Star)

 

The twenty-fourth star in the Nautical Almanac is a second magnitude white star with a portmanteau name that means (quite romantically) "Still Waters." 

Miaplacidus (from Arabic "Miyah" or "Waters" and Latin "Placidus" or "Still") was named by the British Royal Observatory in 1856. It is the second brightest star in Carina The Keel. It is a solo star about 250 million years old. It is three and a half times the mass of the Sun, seven times the radius, and 300 times the luminosity. It burns at about 16,000 F., six thousand degrees hotter than the Sun. It is about 115 light years from Earth.

In Earth's skies it is so far south that it is sometimes referred to as the South Pole Star, though Atria could also get that designation. Neither is anywhere as close to the South Pole as Polaris is to the North Pole.