The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

The frost crunched under the Ugg boots this morning and the cold crept in under the ridiculous hat as I helped myself to views of the waning moon, Sirius and Venus. In this picture Venus can be seen just above the contrail.

You may also just be able to see a star to the right of Venus and slightly higher. This is Spica in the constellation Virgo. Minutes after this picture was taken Spica had disappeared from view, drowned in the dawn’s growing light. Venus would not be bullied so easily from the sky and remained beacon bright. This is one of the easiest ways of telling that you are looking at a planet, they are usually the first to arrive and the last to leave the night party.

Saturn was visible earlier on, higher in the eastern sky than Venus or Spica, but is far from its brightest at…

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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…

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I was enjoying the view down a misty valley this morning when a flock of gulls went overhead. I took a quick photo and had low expectations of its quality. As you can see it is not going to win any awards, but the faint shape of an upside down Big Dipper did stare back at me when I downloaded the pictures. Signs, signs everywhere, but what do they all mean?

Bit of an early start this morning for a busy day in London, but there was consolation in a constellation. Forgive me.

I saw Orion for the first time in months and Sirius was just visible above the dawn sun. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling even though I was shivering in bare feet on cold stone. There were plenty of times mid-Atlantic when the boat was rocking in the big swell and Orion was the friend I used to steady my tired eyes on the night sky. Welcome back, hunter.