The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

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 Sellotaped to a cupboard). After three hours of theory, it was time to head out in 4x4s for a 3 hour drive into the desert, for some more practical training.

We tracked the sun down to the horizon and confirmed that it had indeed set a good 15 degrees south of west.…

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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 note of shifts in wind direction and how this relates to changes in weather patterns. If the weather is unseasonably warm or cold, we should expect some deviation from the prevailing wind direction, southwest.

The image above shows the UK (at lunchtime tomorrow) sandwiched neatly between…

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Last night was the inaugural meeting of the Night Navigators Club. This is a ‘loyalty club’ for all those who have been on any one of my courses in the past – or those who come on one in the future.

For three years I have been pondering how to solve a tricky riddle. There are so many people who would love to learn about the night sky, but it is very hard to organise an outdoor course for this in this country because the weather is so unreliable. I need to sort the dates for my courses at least a few weeks in advance and it is impossible to predict the conditions that far away. Also, the best times of the year for star, moon and planet-gazing are not the best times for weather. Mid-summer is great for many outdoor activities, but with the late sunsets it is not…

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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 nearly all of it alone, in beech woodland and without using a torch. Moving at times with my left hand extended out to fend off inquisitive lower branches, I covered about six miles; this was no race.

In every woodland walk there are times when you feel the forest is on your side…

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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 constellation, Virgo. Below that will be the orangey-yellow Saturn. Neither of them are especially bright and so they will not stand out with the confidence that Jupiter is doing at night at the moment, but they should still be easy to find until the first light of dawn swamps them.

NB. Try…

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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.

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 passed the clouds lost their bright white western edges, but gained pink and orange eastern ones. They moved sedately towards the northeast, signalling the start to a fine day. (Photo to the right was taken a few minutes ago.)

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.

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 to do irregularly since it will appear in the same part of the sky at the same time for many days.

Since Venus is relatively close to the sun and is only visible as a bright object when the sun is below the horizon, it follows that Venus is normally…

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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 some moisture in eventually, but wellies do at least stay dry even if it means slipping about a bit in places.

A roe deer jumped across the path in front of me as I climbed the hill and there was the red breast of a robin waiting on the branch…

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