Rotate/Align/Snap : Beginner's Quest.

I am a graphics/Illustrator beginner, not even knowing the proper terms to word my question; so, please bear with me.
I wanted to rotate a star, and align it with a pole, so that two of its points would snap to the pole.  It was achievable by trial and error, rotating it back and forth, and moving it around to check the snaps.
However, relative to the simplicity of the goal, the job was rather laborous.  So, I ended up believing that there could be a more efficient and logical way.  I went through the rotate/align/snap/transform menus, yet still missed out on a straightforward method.
Any directions would be appreciated.
Thanking you in advance.

@JETalmage
Thank you so much for your kind advice, though those were the steps I had taken before raising the question.
1. SmartGudes on.
Indeed, with "Anchor/Path Labels" checked amongst others.
Elsewhere, "Snap to Points" on, "Snap to Grid" off, "Align to Pixel Grid" off.
2. WhitePointer: AltClick to select the entire star-shaped path.
Works fine.
3. WhitePointer: Mousedown on one of the anchorPoints that you want to align to the other path. Drag it...
Works fine.
...and mouseup when it snaps to the other path.
That is my #1 wish.
The star's bounding box edges do snap to the pole's bounding box edges, but that is not my intent.
Otherwise, none of the star's anchors snap to the pole's path, or anything anywhere.
I have to manually position the star's first anchor on the pole's path, be that accurate or not.
4. RotateTool: Click the anchorPoint you just dragged. That will set the center of transformation (the rotation "anchor") at that position.
Indeed, works fine.  The center of rotation is seen labeled "origin".
5. RotateTool: Mousedown on the other anchorPoint of the star that you want to align. Drag...
Either MouseDown on the other anchor, or anywhere else within the star, it can orbit the "origin" alike, nice and fine.
Anchors are invisible to me during the drag, so I cannot tell any difference between MouseDown on anchor or elsewhere.
...until it snaps to the other path.
That is my #2 wish.
Again, I can only place star's other anchor on pole's path manually, whilst puzzling what I have missed to yield a snap.
Be aware: Illustrator's snaps are often unreliable unless zoomed to a high magnification
I have tried every zoom stepping up to maximum 6400%, yet anchor-to-path snap has not happened.
Any further directions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you again.

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