Entries tagged "jupiter"
2011-11-07
As promised, here is a more detailed update on my short time in Oman last week. My main reason for being there was to train the Omani Outward Bound instructors. In the short time available I wanted to give them a decent understanding of how to use nature's clues to find their way in the desert. Just as importantly, I needed to give them the techniques and knowledge they could pass onto their future students.
We started with theory indoors at the offices of Outward Bound Oman, with the help of planetarium software and makeshift whiteboards (paper…
2011-09-28
A blog of two halves for you today.Late September can bring some of the best early evening experiences for those who enjoy looking upwards.Visibility is likely to fluctuate a bit, but it looks as though we may get some of the best stargazing weather of the year over the next few nights. It promises to be warm enough to enjoy long spells outside, but without the crazily late sunsets of midsummer.I'll point out a few of the things worth looking for in a minute, but first just a few words about this weather.On my courses I encourage people to take…
2010-11-25
Last night the conditions felt right for a walk in the woods. There were plenty of clouds, but large gaps suggested that the stars would not hide for long periods. The moon would not be getting up until later and the breeze was too light to be of help. I needed the stars.
I set off as the last light from the sun faded in the southwest. Cassiopeia and Cygnus neatly sketched out north for me, even when Polaris was well hidden. When moving south I used Jupiter and Aquila.
Four hours later I returned, having spent…
2010-10-30
I crept outside this morning, trying not to wake the kids, and treated my self to a pre-heliacal viewing of Saturn. He was happily nestled under the star Porrima, that is to say between Virgo's armpit and her shoulder.
If you are awake shortly before sunrise over the next couple of weeks, look just south of east. If it is clear then you should see what appears to be white star on top of a yellow one, both of them sitting not far above the horizon. The higher of the two is Gamma Virginis, or Porrima, in the…
2010-09-23
The tops of the trees are just visible in silhouette against the clouds that are lit up by the moon. That is Jupiter to the right.
2010-09-22
Once more my pre-dawn 'Batsense' kicked in and I awoke before five with an urgent desire to go outside. It was not the pressure on my bladder, I do not think, but the idyllic conditions and night sky players that were beckoning me. Orion and his sword were first to offer their greetings and then I noticed Jupiter still visible in the southwest. Sirius, Betelgeuse, Capella, the Plough and Polaris sketched out some order in the celestial sphere.The moon was close to setting and was lighting up rows of fluffy cumulus clouds on their western edges. As time…
2010-08-14
I was at the Goodwood Vintage Festival last night. We saw Ronnie Wood and his band, The Faces, as well as The Wailers. When the moody clouds passed, I couldn't help glancing up at the Plough, Arcturus, Cassiopeia, Perseus and Jupiter rising in the east. Even managed to catch a couple of great Perseid meteors, one of which burnt a smoky trail across the sky, visible above the bright lights of the Big Wheel. Vintage.
2010-08-04
I returned from a family trip to Brittany yesterday and what better welcome back than to come downstairs this morning to find Jupiter beaming at me through a skylight. It is a firm fixture in the early morning sky now and consequently is being confused by many for Venus. If a bright white object is visible when it is too light to see many stars then you are likely looking at Jupiter or Venus, and if the sun is more than fifty degrees away (five extended fist-widths) then that narrows it to Jupiter. This is an exercise you only need…
2009-12-19
Yesterday afternoon I threw the snow off the Land Rover and headed out into the white - I had about half-a-dozen minor outstanding 'to-do's for the book, but there is no point writing a book about natural navigation if you are the sort of person who can resist these conditions. Dressed in a suitably ridiculous balaclava I made my way to the foot of Halnaker Hill and then proceeded uphill in wellies. Unless I'm on a mountain I find wellington boots with two pairs of socks the ideal footwear for small excursions in snow, even good hill-walking boots let…
2009-11-26
Russ Altendorff came on a course in the hills yesterday. He is a keen sailor, electronics guru and author of a popular blog on the more technological side of marine navigation. During our afternoon we locked horns with topics that ranged from the desert to the ocean and back to a southern England that was experiencing hail, horizontal rain and even the odd sunbeam. We also discussed 'confirmation bias', or the tendency to make your observations fit your preferred hypothesis. Natural navigation is particularly susceptible to this, nature is rarely absolute and is so often open to interpretation.…
2009-11-24
I went for a short walk in the dark last night. The clouds were firing past the moon and jupiter giving a very eery feel as the light levels rose and fell dramatically and the wind tore threw the branches. This rushed picture shows a blurred moon, seen through some branches. The moon and Jupiter were very close to each other last night, near conjunction and a blurred Jupiter can hopefully just be seen below it and to the left, also mired in cloud. One of the branches is close to touching it.
2009-09-30
This slightly arty (read - bad!) photo from last night shows an overexposed moon, but just below and to the left you can hopefully make out the bright dot that is Jupiter. The moon and Jupiter were in conjunction, or aligned. This is exactly the sort of thing that would have got the ancients into something of a lather. Modern astrologers are no doubt busy, one astrology website outlines the significance as follows:"You require considerable interaction with people and the environment to stimulate your feelings. This encourages a social awareness and attracts most of your attention. You feel the…
2009-04-26
I was up early this morning and caught a great twilight show from Jupiter and Venus. This photo does not do Venus justice, but you might just be able to make it out in the centre of the picture between the two banks of cloud.Jupiter's orbit is outside earth's and so moves through the night sky quite slowly, about one constellation per year.Venus' orbit is closer to the sun than ours and so its position in the sky changes quite rapidly. It spends about seven months as a bright object in the early evening sky, before disappearing behind the sun's…
2009-03-27
I woke early this morning to a great twilight view of Jupiter, or 'Jove' as the Romans liked to call it, over the eastern horizon. It was a welcome coincidence because I had been studying Antarctic exploration late last night and it featured on a couple of occasions.The wonderfully named Apsley Cherry-Garrard wrote the following in his strongly titled account, 'The Worst Journey in the World',"Generally we steered by Jupiter, and I never see him now without recalling his friendship in those days!"On January 27 1912 Robert Falcon Scott, wrote,"A long way to go, and, by Jove, this is tremendous…
2008-10-02
Twilight at either end of the day is a good time to look south this month. At dusk Jupiter is the first night object to appear, narrowly but clearly, above the southern horizon. This morning at sunrise Sirius was the last object to disappear, again it was due south. I took these two pictures at 6.30am, one looking east showing the red dawn. The other looking south. It is not a fascinating photo of Sirius but it does at least show that there is nothing…
2008-08-13
Last night was one of those occasions where the moon was the natural navigator's best option. At about 10pm the sky overhead was overcast with broken clouds down to nearer the horizon. The western glow of dusk was gone and the only objects that could be seen were Jupiter and the three-quarter Moon. The cloud meant no Polaris, and the bright moon in the only patch of open sky blotted out the other stars. The Moon plays hard to get at first but on nights like this it can be a very good friend.
