The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

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 glare for about four months and then re-emerging in the early morning for seven months. It then repeats the cycle. Ancient civilisations were divided in their understanding of it, some realising that it is a planet and others giving it two labels, ‘morning star’ and ‘evening star’, without realising they…

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Most of my family and friends are aware how much attention I like to give to the journey, as opposed to focusing solely on the destination. They may not be aware that I also harbour two strong interests in Homer’s, Odyssey, for the enjoyment it brings and also the clues to ancient navigation methods. At one stage Odysseus has to keep the Bear constellation, Arctos, on his left to hold his course.

I was delighted this morning to find an email from my sister-in-law drawing my attention to this wonderful poem, Ithaca. It was written by the Greek poet, Constantine P. Cavafy, one hundred years ago. It is weighs in heavily on the side of enjoying a journey, which is quite ironic given that it is inspired by The Odyssey, an epic poem about a man who was trying desperately to bring his journey to a close.

(I don’ t think I’ll…

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It’s 8.15am this morning out on the Downs and this sheep’s shadow tells us that we are looking south. Her wool, or ’sheep fur’ as some would have it, is blowing from the same direction as the sun and gave me a constant reference all morning.

On a completely unrelated note, there is an article about the RGS in today’s Telegraph that I have somehow appeared in.

This morning’s sun was a strong enough clue, but if we wanted to know which way was southeast then these aircraft contrails are pointing the way to the continent.

It looks like a particularly busy morning for aircraft, but this is just a reflection of atmospheric conditions. The hydrogen-rich jet fuel has mixed with oxygen, reacted in the engines and formed, among lots of other lovely and not so lovely things, water. In certain temperatures and humidity levels this water freezes into ice crystals. The high cirrus clouds that we normally see are also composed entirely of ice.

The length of time that a contrail survives depends on the humidity, if the air is dry it will sublimate away, but if saturated they will last as long as other cirrus clouds.

I can remember sitting at a restaurant in the small and perfectly formed fishing village of Trehiguier in southern Brittany last July. I had my back to the sun, which was setting behind the row of houses behind me. I watched the crisp edge of a chimney corner move upwards and to the right as the sun slipped down and to the left behind me. My poor wife had to watch me gauging the sun with a fist and then outstretched fingers and then listen to me predict when the chimney shadow would reach our table.

Last night my wife was spared such ordeals as I was working outside, in a small patch of woodland. I watched the sun’s light moving up the trees in front of me. Unlike the crisp edges of the chimney shadow, the edges were blended. The shadows were moving upwards but not following discrete lines. The…

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This isn’t about the Force, although I did read recently that a lot of Scottish policemen have put ‘Jedi’ down as their religion on their work forms.

More days than not I spot an example of the sun influencing nature in a way that is new to me in some way. In general terms it is fairly old news that a place that receives no direct sunlight will appear different in some way. It is in the detail that the novelty is to be found. The more obvious signs might be that it has different plants growing and an abundance of mosses and lichens.

The more fascinating signs are subtler, created by factors that are minute but combine to create an effect. The first picture shows how broadbrush nature can be. Despite looking in one direction towards a single hillside, as many as six different bands of colour are visible.

The second picture…

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Possibly the worst blog post title that I have yet come up with, and there have been a few…

Our cat, Murphy, can be seen reflecting the direction of the last of the suns rays here.

The tree shadows in the distance have broken free from the woodland in the background too for the first time this year at sunset.

In the spirit of randomness to which this posting has succumbed I thought you might like this puzzle, set by a friend and former NN alumni.

Do not be alarmed if my postings continue to be sporadic, poorly constructed, lacking in theme, good titles, concise argument or beautiful short sentences. Most of that energy is being directed into the book at the moment.

My research into this subject constantly leads me, very willingly, back to the thin line that runs, curving between philosophy, religion, science and nature. If such a line exists – discuss!

I would go so far as to say my work would be very awkward if my personal jury had come in unanimously in favour of any hard views in any of those areas. Sometimes there is a deep longing to know more about things that I know I likely never will. It is hard to articulate this sensation perfectly, but it would perhaps be summed up well by saying that it can sometimes be assuaged by Frank Lloyd Wright’s line, ‘I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.’

There are some natural phenomenon that deeply spiritual people jump up and down about and then point to, in a calm spiritual manner, but which secularists wave away nonchalantly as ‘one of those…

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This morning I was woken by thunder at 4am and could not get back to sleep. Surely at some point I will be too old to get excited by a thunderstorm?!

Just experimenting with embedding one of my Libya video clips. I thought one of the Sahara might keep some of the rain away today. This one was actually taken by mistake – I meant to take a photo.

We spend most of our time looking horizontally. This morning was a misty one and looking out across the fields the mist felt thick and soup-like. Whenever the mist or fog settles in it is worth taking a moment to look up.

When we look vertically up we usually see the mist at its thinnest and it can sometimes be a pleasant surprise to realise that far from being completely smothered we’re actually in a thin blanket. This is a lesson that all pilots learn at some stage, usually with a little adrenalin mixed in.

It is not unusual in a light aircraft to fly over your airfield and look down through a thin mist to see the runways clearly, only to find that a minute later the slanting angle back to the runway can make the whole airfield ‘disappear’ – a real pulse-raiser the first few times it happens.

The two photos…

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