Circumpolar

From Slackerpedia Galactica

As the Earth rotates through the day, objects in the sky seem to move. They follow an arc that is centered on the North and/or South pole (depending upon your hemisphere). Objects near the pole follow a short circle and always stay high in the sky. Objects further away follow a longer path which occasionally takes them below the horizon. The objects that always star in the sky, are known as circumpolar objects.

Each night, objects in the sky appear where they were the previous night at approximately four minutes earlier on that night. For example, a star that rises above the horizon at 10pm one night, will rise at approximately 9:56pm the next night.

You can blame the loser that decided the day is 24 hours long for that. The day is really 23 hours and 56 minutes long (or so). While TV and bus schedules can be forced into the 24 hour day, the spinning of the Earth doesn't care and continues on at 23:56.

(Actually, the Earth's spin is shrinking at around 1 millisecond per century - but we won't talk about that.)